Heroes and Villains
by DreamSmith AJK
Summary: It's Buffy's first week in Sunnydale, and EVERYONE at her new school is a Mutant. Also, Buffy is acting like a real Bitca, and Faith is Wicked-Hot. An A/U done X-men style. Faith/Buffy pairing
1. New beginnings

Author: DreamSmith (DreamSmith AJK for the purposes of posting on this site)

Rating: M

Disclaimer: The usual 'please don't unleash your demonspawn cyber-enhanced meta-powered lawyers upon me' deal, eh? I've thrown tons of money at both these companies over the years to buy their products, the least they can do is let me have a little (nonprofit) fun with them.

Author's Note: Another installment in the [Parallels] series, where no matter what universe we visit, it's all Fuffy, all the time, in infinite variations on the basic theme. This time around, it's an AU combining features of the Buffy and X-Men universes.

A/N 2.0: My first try at posting on this site, so bear with me if I manage to really screw something up.

"--Anyway, I need you to really try and make this work." Joyce glanced over for a moment, her expression equal parts stern and pleading, before returning her attention to her driving. "Finding a school that would take you after... well, after everything that happened... it wasn't easy."

Buffy sighed quietly, and turned her head to look out at the scenery passing by.

"I know, mom, I _know_. I promise, I'll try to get along with people better, here. You just have no idea...."

Her mother had no idea what it was like; what Buffy's life was like. To be sixteen, and to have to deal with all of the extra craziness of her world on top of the already impossible stress of being a teenager.... No, the older woman had no idea.

Her mother's own sigh was louder, and more exasperated.

"Honey, I'm doing the best I can with this. I'm working hard to be 'open-minded mom', aren't I?" Buffy shrugged her shoulders and said nothing, still gazing at the small, sun-drenched town they now called home. Joyce was silent too, for a long minute, until they stopped at a traffic light. Then the girl felt a touch on her shoulder. "Buffy, I don't hate you. I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not abandoning you. I moved us here just so you could go to school with other people who... are in the same situation." There was hurt in her voice. "Doesn't that earn me any consideration at all? Won't you at least look at me?"

Buffy blinked, and thought about it for a moment, and finally turned her head to look at her mother. The woman's face was open, and vulnerable, and the girl fought to get past the knot of guilt, pain, and sullen anger that had been twisting inside her for weeks.

"The word is 'mutant', mom," she said softly, her green eyes quietly accusing. "When you say 'people in the same situation', what you mean is 'mutant'." She turned away again, unable to bear the pain in her mother's eyes. "Maybe I'd believe you were really okay with it, that you still see me the same, if you could actually stand to say the word."

A deafening silence filled the vehicle, and Buffy closed her eyes.

_My god, I am being such a bitch to her,_ she thought. _I know she's trying, I really do. It's just...._ She shook her head, folding her arms tightly across her stomach as she hunched down in her seat. _It's just that none of it is my_ fault! _I didn't ask for any of this. I never wanted to be different, or to have powers. And I sure never wanted any of what happened back at my old school to happen, either!_

Vision of fire and destruction passed behind her closed eyelids, along with visions of the ones she'd been fighting, that fateful night. Vicious, distorted faces, yellow eyes, gleaming fangs....

She opened her eyes and sat upright, unwilling to relive those memories yet again. It had been a near thing, with the police in Los Angeles. The arson investigator, in particular, had been more than half-convinced that Buffy was behind the destruction. She'd played the cuteness card for all it was worth, of course, and it helped that she was tiny, and blonde, and extremely pretty. Still, one court-ordered DNA test would give lie to any pretense of helplessness, so it had been a tense two weeks. When the investigation had finally ended, and the police had declined to actually arrest her, she'd thought the worst was over.

And then Joyce had dropped the bombshell. Moving to another town, away from her friends, and her father, and everything she knew. A new school. A _special_ school. Ever since, she'd been in full-on sulky/angry/hateful teen mode. She knew it, and knew that her mother didn't deserve it... and she still couldn't help herself.

Glancing out the passenger-side window, Buffy saw that they'd already left the tiny urban center of Sunnydale behind, and were now in the greener, semi-wooded area north of town.

Buffy's mom nearly missed the turnoff; the entrance to the school was marked only by a small, discreet sign. "The Sunnydale Academy for the Gifted". The private drive passed through a dense belt of trees which completely hid the school grounds from the road. On the other side they encountered what was obviously a newly-constructed wall of stone blocks; ten feet high at least, with mounds of raw earth and a few leftover blocks piled untidily here and there. The gate before them was ornate, beautifully-made... and very solid looking.

"Welcome to the Sunnydale freak prison," Buffy muttered sullenly, drawing a reproving look from her mother.

"You know very well that it's no such thing," the woman told her, her voice heavy with determined patience. "You can come and stay with me every weekend, and for the winter and summer breaks, too." She pulled up to where a security guard was stationed in a little cubicle thingy, and rolled down her window. Since she was busy showing the man the admission paperwork, she missed Buffy's soft reply.

"I'd rather be home _every_ night, mom. In my own room, in my own bed." She scrunched down in her seat again. "Forcing me to be around other freaks isn't going to make me less of one, you know."

The guard, apparently satisfied that everything was in order, did something that caused the gate to slide open. Joyce drove the car through, and Buffy entered her new world.

* * *

The 'school' looked more like a very large mansion to Buffy, though there were several other buildings scattered around that might hold the actual classrooms. Those structures, unlike the ivy-covered main building, looked to be very recent additions to the grounds, with a team of landscapers even now working to mend the scars left by construction equipment. Joyce pulled the SUV up to what seemed to be the designated drop-off point, and they both stepped out into the brilliant afternoon sun. There were other young people around, either standing and talking with each other or piling out of their own parentmobiles. The 'crowd' was definitely anything but, however, which matched what the brochure had said. The whole student body here was only a fraction of what the sophomore class at her old school had been. As her mother spoke to a dark-suited woman with a clipboard, Buffy went to the back of the vehicle and unloaded her belongings. All told there were three large suitcases and a huge duffel, and at first she found herself following deeply ingrained habit. Pulling them out one at a time, she pretended to struggle with the weight, just like any other normal girl her size would have done. Then she stopped, and thought about what she was doing, and gave a shrug instead.

_I guess if I'm in freaksville anyway, I might as well act the part._

Gripping two of the suitcase handles in one tiny hand, she lifted them effortlessly. The strap for the duffel went over her head, so that the huge, heavy mass rested on her back. The last suitcase, the largest and heaviest, was no problem for her free hand. Moving carefully so as not to lose her balance while carrying three times her own negligible weight, she turned, saw the startled stare her mother was giving her, and smiled.

"All set, here. Which way to the dorms?"

Whatever Joyce would have said was lost in the sudden crash of something slamming into her from behind, and the girl was sent sprawling. Her lightning-quick reflexes would have easily put her feet back under her before she hit the ground, if not for the weight of the duffel on her back interfering with her balance. As it was, her arms flew wide, and she ended up flinging suitcases in three directions, and slamming painfully into the ground. The hard concrete sidewalk wasn't kind to either her elbow or her knee, and she gritted her teeth against the sudden pain.

"Xander! Are you alright?"

Buffy opened her eyes, and registered several things at once. Firstly, one of her suitcases, which had went flying as she threw out her hands to try and catch herself, had, in fact, gone right through the passenger-side window of her mother's car. Shattered safety glass was still crackling and tinkling as it fell to the ground, and she gave a resigned sigh. Secondly, her mother was staring at her in dismay, but was making no immediate effort to approach. Apparently the sudden display of violence, unintentional as it was, had brought home once again the strangeness of her only child. And, thirdly, the object which had slammed into her without warning was a dorky-looking guy who was sprawled just a few feet away, staring at her with an expression of awe. The blood streaming down into one eye from a cut on his forehead didn't seem to bother him in the slightest, and he sat up, then started crawling towards her, all without ever looking away.

"Can I have you?" He asked, reaching out with one hand. Buffy flinched back, ignoring her own bloody scrapes, and he pulled back a bit. "I mean, 'can I _help_ you,'" he said, ducking his head in embarrassment. "Obviously, helping you is what I said. Or what I meant. What I meant to said--ah, meant to _say_. Um, obviously." His meandering words finally slowed, then stopped, and he looked at her expectantly. Buffy stared at him, then sat up.

"I'm fine," she snapped, a lie if ever there was one. Here she was, showing up at a new school, a new _high school_, where image was as vital as oxygen, and the first glimpse her classmates had of her was when this moron decked her and sent her sprawling.

_This is just peachy_, she grumbled to herself. _Not that I really _needed _any friends here or anything, though it would have been nice to have had the option...._

"Xander, I asked if you were alright!"

Somehow Buffy had missed the red-haired girl running towards them, even after she'd shouted a few moments ago, right after the collision. Now she hurried to the fallen boy, and knelt down beside him. He tried to push her away, ineffectually, and the girl pressed one narrow hand against the gash on his forehead.

"Mighty Hecate, hear my prayer," the girl murmured, eyes closing. Buffy raised one eyebrow, glanced over at where her mother was staring at damage the luggage-shaped missile had inflicted upon her car, and started to drag herself to her feet. It was awkward, given the sharp nuggets of glass scattered over the sidewalk, and the weight dragging at her back. Before she'd gotten very far someone stepped up beside her, reached down to take her by both her hand and her undamaged elbow, and helped her to her feet. She got herself upright, the automatic words of thanks rising to her lips... and then stopped, and stared instead.

The girl was tall--or at least, taller than Buffy herself, though that was no great trick. Dark eyes, pale skin, full, ruby-red lips, and... purple hair? She blinked, took a second look, and yes, it was still there, all sleek, and waist-length, and very definitely a dark shade of purple. That color was repeated in the skimpy silk halter top she wore, which showed off a trim midriff, nice shoulders, and some envy-inducing cleavage. The leather pants were black, and so tight that there couldn't have been room for a credit card in the back pockets. Buffy also noted, belatedly, that the girl hadn't yet let go of her hand and arm, even though Buffy was obviously well able to stand on her own. Clearing her throat awkwardly, she moved a pace backwards. The girl released her without comment.

"Thanks," Buffy managed, slipping the duffel off her back.

"Not a problem, babe," the stranger murmured, so softly that it almost got past the smaller girl's more-than-human hearing. It didn't, though, and she would have given purple-girl an indignant look, if something else hadn't interrupted.

"Hey, I'm sorry," the boy who'd hit her said, rising to his feet. "I wasn't trying to plow into you or anything, I swear." He gave her a grin that was obviously meant to be charming in some geeky, goofy way, but Buffy was not amused.

"How about you try and be more careful?" she said, not _quite_ snarling the words. She was acutely aware of how disheveled she looked now; her nice white blouse torn and stained with blood, and her knee scraped raw. She'd worn the short, dark skirt specifically to show off her nicely-formed legs, and now, well, the view wasn't quite what she'd intended. And all of that didn't even take into account how intimidated she felt by the tall girl with the purple hair. The girl who was not only un_believably_ sexy, but who also couldn't seem to take her eyes off of Buffy herself.

The third girl present, the skinny one with the red hair, finally stopped her quiet praying, or chanting, or whatever the heck she'd been doing all this time, and took her hand away from the boy's head.

"There you go, Xander," she chirped brightly. "Good as new!"

Buffy looked, startled, and sure enough the skin underneath the smears of blood looked to be perfectly whole again.

_This really_ is _freaksville. Better get used to it._

The girl then turned to Buffy, gave an exclamation, and started forward.

"Oh! Here, I can do you, too." It might have been an honest offer, certainly the girl looked harmless enough... but appearances could be deceiving. So far, the only other people she'd met who were... different... hadn't exactly been friendly. In fact, they'd been downright murderous, and she'd barely come away with her skin intact. Given that history, it would probably be awhile before she would be able to let any stranger (especially _strange_ strangers) that close.

"No!" Buffy said, a little more sharply than she'd intended. The girl stopped short, a hurt look on her face, and then she took a slow step back.

"Okaaaay," she said, then brightened. "Well, I'm Willow, and I guess you already met Xander here." The boy raised one hand, and gave her a little wave.

"Hi."

Willow smiled at him, then at Buffy.

"Xander and I have known each other all our lives. We're actually from here--Sunnydale, I mean. I think we're the only ones. Everyone else is from other parts of the state." She paused, waiting expectantly for a reply. Buffy just looked at her.

Purple-haired girl just looked at Buffy (which was disconcerting in the _oddest_ way, though she refused to show it, or even acknowledge the stare).

The sound of a throat clearing broke the tense silence, and Buffy looked over to see her mother had finally gotten up the courage to approach her again.

"Here you go, honey," she said, setting the suitcase down. It looked a little worse for wear now, with scratches and tiny bits of glass decorating it. Looking around at the four young people, Joyce gave a forced smile. "And see? You're already making friends." Buffy gave the woman the same sullen, unfriendly stare she'd been giving Willow a moment earlier, and her mother cleared her throat again. "Well, I'll leave you to get settled in." He leaned forward and hugged the girl, awkwardly, but with genuine affection. "Call me tonight, and let me know how things are going," she said, and Buffy nodded.

"I will," she promised. It still wasn't her mother's fault, any of this. It still wasn't fair, either.

Joyce got in the car, tried to pretend she didn't notice the broken window, failed, then waved a final time. As she drove away, Buffy turned back to the others. Fair or not, she was going to be spending a lot of time with these people, so it was probably a good idea to at least _try_ and be civil with them.

"I'm Buffy," she said, and if her tone wasn't cheerful at least it wasn't blatantly hostile, either. "I, um... I guess I'm new to all of this." A gesture indicated the scattering of other students, and the school itself. Across the lawn, a girl with long blonde hair was glowing as golden as the sunlit afternoon itself, and slowly rose high into the air. Her laughter carried to where Buffy stood, and she shook her head in disbelief. "I'm _very_ new to this, actually."

Willow smiled, looking relieved that the smaller girl was willing to speak after all.

"Oh, we all are, I think. New, I mean. And most mutant powers don't show up until you're fourteen or so anyway, so nobody's going to have had _that_ much practice yet." She nodded across to the main building. "The school's new too, you know. This is going to be the first semester."

"Oh." Buffy hadn't known that, though the barely-finished look of the place should have provided ample clueage, had she, you know, actually cared or anything.

"Well," she said, picking up her suitcase and shouldering her duffel. "I guess I'd better go find where to put this stuff." Willow nodded excitedly, and hurried over to where a pair of small suitcases waited by the curb.

"Wait, and we'll go with you!"

Buffy shrugged, and plodded towards where her other two pieces of luggage had landed, twenty or thirty feet out in the lawn. The tall, quiet girl, with only a worn-looking backpack over one shoulder, trailed along after her.

"You got a pretty good throwing arm for a lil' bitty thing, don't you?" The voice was low, and somehow managed to be scratchy and velvety all at the same time. Buffy glanced back, saw Xander and Willow coming up behind the other girl, and smiled slightly.

"A regular mighty mouse, that's me." She picked up the rest of her stuff, distributed it around her person once more, and then headed for the front entrance of the mansion. For some reason, though, and in direct opposition to her usual policy, she found herself going on. "So anyway, I'm strong, and I'm pretty fast; reflexes and running both. I fight really well, too. Somebody told me once that I've got some sort of speed-learning when it comes to picking up martial arts or new weapons." She gave the other girl a sidelong look, worried that all this might be coming across as bragging, or as her being conceited. The girl gave no sign of that, though, just nodding and looking both interested and impressed. "And I've got crazy-sharp senses--well, at least the seeing and hearing parts; I can't smell your BO from across the room or anything."

Willow snorted softly at that.

"Hah! You've obviously never been around Xander on a camping trip. This one time, a baby black bear was actually following him around the campsite, because he smelled so much like it's mommy--"

"Hey, _thankyounowshutup_, please!" Xander blurted, elbowing his friend sharply, and hard enough to make her grunt and stumble. She rubbed at her side and glared at him, but he ignored her. "Hey, that's a pretty cool list of powers there, Buffy. Kind of makes you sound like a tiny, unstoppable combat machine." He grinned, deepened his voice, and tried an Austrian accent. "She is _da Buffinator._ She cannot be bargained with, or reasoned with, and she _Will. Not. Stop. Evar_!" He waited expectantly for her to laugh. She hit him with her best death stare instead, the one that had sent far larger and scarier creatures than he running for their lives. It worked well enough; after a few moments' exposure his cheerfulness visibly faded, and he fell back a step or two as they walked. Still determined to make friends with _someone_, Buffy looked back at Willow.

"So hey, what's your specialness? Something to do with healing?" Willow nodded, then ducked her head shyly, looking embarrassed for some reason.

"Well, healing, yeah, plus a few other things." She wouldn't have gone on, but Buffy, curious, gave her a little prod.

"A few other things? Like what?"

Willow shrugged, looked away, glanced back, and finally relented.

"Telekinesis, sorta... though I'm not very good at it yet!" She seemed to think it important that Buffy understood that point, so the blonde girl nodded. "Okay, then. Um, pyrokinesis and cryokinesis--which comes in handy, 'cause if one gets out of control I can use the other one to deal with the mess. Then there's this thing where I can control plants sometimes, bend and magnify light a little, levitate myself, give the weather a nudge if conditions are right...."

Buffy had turned around by this point, and was staring at the girl in disbelief.

"Are you serious? You can really do _all_ that?"

Actually, she wasn't even sure what half of those things were. Cryokinesis? Was that some deal where you could make people start crying on command? And how did you control a plant? Anything other than 'Stay' seemed like it would be beyond a plant's ability even if it _was_ trying to do what you told it to do. Even so, that was a lot of nifty things.

"Gee, that makes me feel a little bit like Scrappy Doo." That got her a blank look from Willow, so she explained. "You know, the cartoon dog? The small, pointless, annoying one that nobody liked?"

"Oh!" Willow nodded, then stopped, frowned fiercely, and shook her head. "Oh, no, no way! You're much, much cooler than he was, absolutely!"

Behind her, Xander gave a sudden laugh.

"Hey, you know, if we all hung out together, we could be the Scooby Gang! Wouldn't that be awesome?" Buffy gave him a disgusted glance, caught a glimpse of the mysterious purple-haired girl giving him a truly chilling look, and then went back to ignoring him. At this point they arrived at the front entrance to the mansion, which was a relief... right up until they met yet another person wielding a clipboard.

"New admissions?" the woman asked, peering at them over her fashionable glasses. Buffy wanted to snap at her, asking what else they possibly _could_ be. Since they were all teenagers carrying suitcases or backpacks they were obviously students, and if this was the grand opening of the school then there wasn't going to be anything _except_ new ones.

"Yes," she managed, in a semi-normal tone of voice. "New admissions, that's us."

"Well then, you're in the wrong place." The woman pointed perfunctorily with her pen. "Go around to the West entrance, please, and follow the signs. Student housing is on the second and third floors of that wing."

Buffy turned and stalked away, leaving it to Willow to thank the woman. Now that they were on a sidewalk again the going was easier, though it would have taken a lot more weight than this to really make her work at carrying it. Behind her she heard a familiar sound, and after a moment she placed it--she'd heard that sound immediately before being struck by Xander out by the drive. Glancing back, she saw that he was perched atop a skateboard, and was wobbling along with more enthusiasm than skill.

_No wonder the idiot knocked me down. It looks like he barely knows how to stay on that thing, much less steer. Or stop._

"If you fall off and break your neck, don't expect any sympathy from me," she said aloud. Xander laughed again, and this time it sounded much less forced than usual.

"Already did that," he said. Buffy frowned, considered that, and looked back over her shoulder. That showed her Willow, staring up at the imposing mansion beside them, Xander, awkwardly maneuvering his board while staring at Buffy's ass... and the other girl, also staring at Buffy's ass. She felt her frown intensify, though of course if she hadn't wanted people to look then she probably shouldn't have worn something so short and tight. Still....

"Ah, excuse me?" Both sets of eyes lifted to meet her own, and Xander grinned.

"Two weeks ago. Fell off my board while I was going down this really steep hill by my house. Hit the curb, went flying, slammed right into this tree." He used his hands to mime a stick breaking in half. "Crack! Broke my neck. Had to lie there for quite awhile before I could move again." He puffed out his chest a little and did his best to strike a pose... which nearly sent him flying when he failed to notice that the sidewalk turned right to go around the corner and along the side of the mansion. Recovering (with some difficulty), he got up to speed again and regained his position just behind the others. "That's _my_ power."

"Super healing?"

Buffy couldn't help but be a little impressed. Xander shook his head.

"Nope. Close though; I do heal really fast." He jerked a thumb at the red-haired girl. "If she hadn't worked her mojo on that cut earlier, I'd still have healed it up in a few minutes." Buffy nodded.

"I heal fast too." She raised her elbow to show how the scrape was already scabbed over and starting to turn pink with new skin at the edges. He waved a hand in dismissal.

"I heal faster, believe me. And more than that." He looked insufferably smug, squared his shoulders, and grinned widely. "I'm immortal."

Willow snorted again, and rolled her eyes, but didn't say anything. The tall, spooky girl gave him a sidelong look, and stayed silent. That sort of left it up to Buffy to speak up.

"Excuse me?"

He looked a little disappointed, wobbled his board back and forth a little when they encountered a few pieces of loose gravel on the sidewalk, and repeated it.

"Immortal. Can't die. Ever. That's me." He spread his hands, as if to say 'what else can I say?'.

Buffy pondered that for a moment, then turned to face forward again.

_Yikes. And I thought _I_ was weird?! This place is totally freaking me out, and I haven't even made it inside yet!_

Fortunately for her sanity, they were nearly to what had to be the designated student entrance. A pair of double doors just ahead were flanked by signboards with neatly arranged notices and helpful map diagrams pinned to them. Buffy walked up to the one on the right, dropped her stuff in a pile, and reached out to trace the dotted lines with one finger.

"Okay, it says 'you are here', so we need to go--"

It was pure stupidity on her part; stupidity and carelessness. She didn't react in time when that sound--the sound of a rapidly-approaching skateboard--failed to stop approaching at a reasonable distance. Instead, it came right up behind her, and for the second time in ten minutes she was knocked from her feet. This time she didn't have any encumbering luggage to slow her down... she only had the signboard (which turned out to be quite sturdily-constructed) directly in front of her. And so, before she could do much of anything besides register that she'd been hit, she found herself slamming face-first into the thing, then falling back to land on her butt. Hard.

When she got past the first wash of pain she whipped her head around. Once again, the culprit was Xander, lying sprawled just a few feet away.

"Oops," he said, looking sheepish.

This time, however, things went a bit differently from that other, similar accident. Filled with an incandescent fury, Buffy surged to her feet.

"You stupid, clumsy, idiotic... _freak!_" It didn't matter to her that the last bit actually applied equally to both of them, because at this point she was well and truly pissed off. "If you don't know how to ride that ridiculous thing--" she gestured at the skateboard with a hand that was literally trembling with rage. "--Then at least do it where there's no one else around to get hurt!"

Xander stared up at her, then climbed slowly to his feet.

"Look, I'm sorry." He didn't seem especially sorry to her, though, especially when he had the gall to grin at her. "And besides, you said you heal up fast, right? So what's the big deal?" The grin widened as something occurred to him, and he picked up the board from where it lay at his feet. "In fact, you and me, since we share the whole 'invincible' thing, maybe we should think about teaming up. We could both ride skateboards, and wear matching uniforms, and have codenames that fit together, like 'Unhurtable Kid and Unstoppable Lass', what do you think?"

Buffy stared for a few seconds, realized he was actually serious, and then reached out. Taking the skateboard from him, she tried to put some fraction of her anger into her glare.

"What do I _think_? How about this?" Breaking the tough composite material of the skateboard across her knee was easy, especially when she was so furious she could barely see straight. Xander made a sort of gasping, squalling sound, reaching for the pieces of his baby, but she wasn't finished yet. "And also... _this_!" Stepping to one side gave her a clear line of fire, and she wound up and threw, as hard as she could. First one piece, and then the other, flew in a high, long arc, taking several seconds to pass from view behind the roofline of what was probably the school's gymnasium. It looked to be an empty, wooded area back there, so she doubted that anyone would be brained by the flying debris. From behind her she heard a quiet murmur.

"Wow, fucking Mighty Mouse is _right_."

Willow was staring with wide eyes, looking like a frightened rabbit who didn't know which way to jump. Xander, however, was red-faced, and nearly spitting with fury as he stepped up to loom over the tiny girl.

"Okay, what the _hell_ was that?! I _said_ I was sorry! I didn't mean to run into you!" Both fists clenched, he was shouting as directly into her face as the height difference allowed. "You _don't_ mess with somebody's stuff! _Ever_! And I don't care if you're a girl or not, so help me I'm gonna--!"

Buffy was staring up at him, matching his glare with her own, desperately hoping that he _would_ be stupid enough to take a swing at her. Her hands clenched into fists that were much smaller mirrors of his own, she waited... then blinked in confusion as he suddenly stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over his own feet. It almost looked like some strange optical illusion, because the physics of it were wrong. He _couldn't_ have moved his body like that, so abruptly and so fast, not the way he'd been standing, flat-footed, right in front of her. A moment later he regained his balance, and stared at her... and then past her, as someone stepped into view.

The tall girl, the quiet, spooky one with the purple hair. She stepped forward, then eased to the side, placing herself protectively in front of Buffy.

"Back off, pencil dick," the odd girl said, her voice strangely relaxed given the tense situation. Buffy, who had absolutely no need of anyone to save her, nevertheless found herself standing there and watching it happen. It was such a novel situation, having someone protect _her_, someone willing to fight for _her_ for once, that she couldn't bring herself to interrupt. Besides, she was curious to see what would happen.

"Oh, you did _not_ just use some lame power on me," Xander said, looking as if he were actually having trouble believing it. "What is it, telekinesis, like Willow has?" He shook his head, falling into what seemed to be his standard snarky mode. "Wow, does the levitation of pencils and the brutal shoving of me backwards a whole ten feet just scare me so much... except for how it doesn't." He made a show of cracking his knuckles, one by one, shaking out his hands, and then bending over to pick up something off of the ground. One of the construction crews responsible for converting the mansion grounds into a school campus had left a pile of miscellaneous debris near the entrance. Out of that pile, Xander pulled a short section of iron rebar, a little over two feet long. At nearly an inch thick, it was a heavy, dangerous weapon, and Buffy realized for the first time that despite his goofy demeanor, Xander was actually a fairly big, fit-looking young man. When he stepped forward, the bar swinging loosely back and forth in his hand, the tall girl moved off to her right, drawing him away from Buffy.

"Xander! Don't!" Willow's desperate plea was ignored, and she turned to look at Buffy. "Do something! Stop them!"

Buffy shrugged carelessly.

"He's your friend, not mine." She rubbed carefully at her nose, which had slammed into the signboard pretty solidly during that second collision. It seemed unbroken, though it was still very tender. "Besides, he can't really be hurt, right?"

"That's right," Xander chimed in, never looking away from the girl he was stalking. "Burn me, freeze me, electrocute me, throw me... whatever you do, I can always come back for more." He was close to the girl, now. Buffy, watching from the sidelines, was sure it was because she _wanted_ him close. The two were the same height, though Xander was significantly heavier and more muscular than the girl. He grinned, made a sudden, vicious swing with his iron weapon, then swung it again when his opponent slipped nimbly away. The second attack was closer, and the third came closer still.

"So, which one are you going to try?" he asked her mockingly. "Or are you just going to try and beat me up?"

She smiled back at him, a scary, _evil_ smile.

"How about 'none of the above'?" she asked, and when he swung at her again, with all his strength and weight behind it, she moved forward to meet him.

Something happened there, some _thing_ flared into existence in her hand; an eye-searing piece of brilliant, violet-hued... _something_. Whatever it was, it met the iron rod as it came whistling down at her head; met it, and sheared through it like a chainsaw through crème cheese. Xander flinched back, his eyes following the end of his weapon as it went flying off to the side. Hastily backpedaling, he looked down at the short, useless remains he still held in his hand, then flung it at the girl. She was advancing towards him, still smiling, and she didn't even break stride. Her empty hand came up in a slow, almost lazy gesture, and a brief flare of violet light came and went in an instant, defecting the projectile as if it had struck a solid wall. Buffy, squinting against the glare, was now able to see that the thing in the girl's other hand was shaped like some sort of exotic weapon; a knife, with a wickedly barbed, double-pointed blade. Xander, still backing away, threw one quick glance behind him, looking for a place to run, or a place to hide.

That was a mistake.

The instant he looked away, the tall girl flashed forward. She didn't run towards him, or even leap towards him... she just _moved_, like some invisible rubber band had snapped her across the intervening distance with impossible speed. Xander's head came back around just in time to see the glare of that violet blade pass underneath his chin, taking his throat out in a spray of bright arterial blood. He gagged, staggering back another pace, and the girl spun through a graceful pirouette. Another blade, identical to the first, materialized in her other hand as she swept it through a looping, upwards arc, which gutted the young man from crotch to chin, neatly bisecting the other cut she had inflicted an instant earlier. Stepping back, she watched as he tried to keep his organs from spilling out, mostly succeeded (mostly), and then slowly keeled over backwards to crash onto the red stained grass.

"XANDER!" Willow shrieked, running to his side. Buffy, for her part, watched in shock as the girl let her violet energy knives fade into nothingness, and then walk calmly over to join her. When they were standing face to face, she looked up at the taller girl, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open.

"I--" She closed her mouth, swallowed, and then tried again. "I can't believe you _did_ that!" Peering around the girl confirmed that yes, it really had happened. Xander was lying there like a gutted fish--he was even thrashing around like one--with Willow trying to hold him still long enough to put her hands on his wounds. Although the wound-to-hand ratio seemed to be pretty extreme.... Buffy shook her head, looking back at the girl. "I mean, don't you think that was a little excessive?"

The purple-haired maniac had the nerve to smile at her.

"Not really. And besides, 'excessive' is sort of my thing. Among other things."

Buffy didn't have a good answer for that, so instead she fell back to practicalities.

"I have to get out of here," she mumbled, hastily grabbing up her bags. "I got thrown out of my last school, and all I did there was break a few bones. And dangle the quarterback from the roof by his ankle." The other girl beat her to her duffel bag, picking it up with only slight difficulty and slinging it over her shoulder. She shot the blonde an amused look.

"Really? They threw you out for _that_?"

Buffy thought about rescuing her bag from the other girl, decided against it, and hurried towards the entrance doors.

"Well, there might have been a small case of me burning down the gym, but I swear, it was full of Vamp--" She broke off, shook her head, and swallowed what she'd been about to say. "It was full of evil mutants who were trying to kill me, and a lot of other people."

That got her the most impressed look the girl had given her so far.

"Fuck me, B; I thought you were all cute and stuff, but you're pretty hardcore."

Passing through the doors, pausing just long enough to hold one open for her companion, Buffy hurried inside.

"Oh, I'm cute too. The hardcore comes as a factory extra." They found themselves at the base of a staircase leading up, with signs directing them to the upper floors for their room assignments. "And by the way, I'm getting tired of thinking of you as 'that scary girl with the purple hair. Do you _have_ a name?"

"Yep. I'm Faith." She reached out and gripped Buffy's hand, ganger-style. "Pleased to meet you."

Buffy nodded.

"Faith. Okay, nice to meet you too... I think." Looking behind them, she saw several people, including what might have been school administrator types, heading outside to investigate the commotion. If she cocked her head, she could still hear Willow's screams, despite some really excellent modern soundproofing in the building. She hurried a little faster, and when they reached the second floor landing she bypassed it, and headed them up towards the third, and highest floor.

"Um, just out of curiosity, what exactly did you use on him?" She nodded towards the girl's hands, which currently looked completely innocent and harmless. "I've never seen a power like that before."

Faith glanced down at the hands in question, then back at Buffy with a somewhat wicked smile.

"I think the name for it is 'Badass glowy things that really fuck people up'. That's the technical name for it, anyway." Amazingly, and in spite of her best efforts not to, Buffy found herself smiling at that, just a little. When they reached the third floor they stopped together, and moved as one to where a window overlooked that side of the building. A small crowd of people were gathered down on the grassy lawn, and she saw that Xander was still where he had fallen. Someone was giving him mouth to mouth, and someone else seemed to be attempting CPR, although managing that without having one's hands slip inside the open chest cavity looked to be a real challenge. Willow, crying hysterically, was trying to get to him, but was being held back by people who didn't understand that she could heal.

Buffy frowned, surprised to find herself a little worried.

"You don't think he was lying to us, do you? About being immortal?" Faith peered down, then shrugged and turned away.

"We can only hope." There was a chart there, beside a door that led into the hallway beyond. Bending close, Faith inspected it, then looked up with a pleased smile. "Hey, they're all double rooms, but there's a corner one that's still empty." A subtle, yet profoundly disconcerting something crept into her eyes as she gazed at the smaller girl.

"How about it? Wanna be roomies?"

* * * * *


	2. Alpha Bitches

**'Alpha Bitches'**

Author's Note: So hey, I'm having a fair bit of fun writing this one. Throw some feedback my way and I'll keep going with it. Unfortunately, Cordelia's entrance got pushed back to next chapter, but we do get to meet one of her Cordettes in this one.  
A/N II: For those who don't know, Xavier's school, which this is based on, is sort of a middle/high school combined with a private college/boarding school sort of thing. So the student body ranges in age from thirteen to twenty-one or so, and the students DO live on campus. Only a handful of these kids are going to live close enough, like Buffy, to go home on most weekends.  
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There were a few other students wandering around the third floor of the dorm, all female, all somewhere in their teens. Since there didn't seem to be fixed room assignments, most of the girls seemed to be trying to find someone they liked well enough to live with, and then the pair would pick a room to call home. Even though Buffy knew basically nothing about Faith, she decided to go ahead and stand by her promise to partner up with her. Certainly the other girl was well able to protect herself, which was great because Buffy was sick and tired of fighting monsters on behalf of stupid, defenseless, and _ungrateful_ strangers.

_Plus there's the thing where she inflicted a mind-boggling amount of smackdown on that moron Xander to protect me--gotta love_ that!

A pleased little half-smile tugged at her mouth for an instant, then vanished when she found the room number they'd been looking for.

"Here, this looks like it." At the last room on the left she paused, set down a suitcase for a moment to free her hand, and opened the door. Faith followed her inside, and they both stopped to take it in.

"Nice," was the taller girl's comment, and Buffy could only nod in agreement.

It was big, for starters, an L-shaped room with pairs of large windows in the opposite and right-hand walls. The two beds were both ornate affairs with headboards of some dark, richly-carved wood that looked _very_ expensive. There were two desks of the same design against the left wall, separated by a massive bookcase which came pre-stocked with a couple hundred impressively thick books. The vanity and mirror in the corner looked like antiques; even the wallpaper had an old-fashioned appearance, though the building itself still smelled of newly sawn wood and freshly-applied paint. The light fixtures were of polished brass and crystal, the carpet soft and almost deep enough to get lost in.

Honestly, the rich elegance of the room wouldn't have looked out of place in some centuries-old European palace, though of course Buffy wasn't going to let her pleased surprise show.

"It's not bad, I suppose... for someplace I'm being forced to stay against my will." Faith gave her a disbelieving look even as she moved to investigate one of the huge, overstuffed chairs. Dropping her backpack and Buffy's duffel bag on the floor, she plopped down, then leaned back with a sigh.

"I don't know about you, but sleeping in _this_ thing would be an upgrade over anyplace I've ever crashed before." The blonde girl's reply was an elaborately disinterested shrug, though she couldn't help taking a look around the place. There were two fair-sized closets, a massive dresser with a dozen drawers for yet more clothes storage, a mini-fridge, and a nice stereo system. On each desk there stood a state-of-the-art personal computer complete with an oversized flat screen monitor. Parked beside each of those was a sleek, lightweight laptop.

The room's other door opened onto a large bathroom, and her exclamation at what she found in there was enough to get Faith out of her comfy chair to come and see what was the matter.

"Okay, it's a bathroom. So what?"

Buffy looked at her indignantly, and pulled the other girl into the room.

"It's not just a bathroom, it's _amazing_! Look, double sinks! Marble counters and tile!" She walked to the far end, and nearly squealed with joy at what she found there.

"There's a shower _and_ a bathtub, and it's _huge_!" Being a smallish person had few advantages, but one of them was being able to float comfortably in an average-sized tub. This one was longer, twice as deep, and twice as wide as the one at home, and would almost serve her as a hot tub. "Ohmigod! A built-in Jacuzzi!" Now it was Faith's turn to shrug, and Buffy shook her head sadly. "You poor, uncivilized person. Where horrible place are you from, anyway; some forgotten forest where you were raised by wolves?"

"People usually just call it 'Boston'," Faith answered, turning to walk back into the room. "And I _was_ raised by wolves, only these were the kind that have guns and knives instead of big, sharp teeth." Buffy looked after her, wondering at the story behind _that_ cryptic remark, then shook her head and went back to inspecting the amazing bathroom. Each sink had its own mirror, both framed by rows of large-bulbed stage lights, which would be wonderfully helpful when putting on makeup. She was trying to decide which side she wanted to claim as her own when her enhanced hearing caught Faith's quiet voice from out in the main room.

"Well, damn, Chuck; why don'tcha go ahead and fuck me sideways while you're at it?"

Buffy blinked, frowned, and walked back out.

"I'm sorry, who do _what_ to you?" When she saw what Faith was holding she stopped short, and felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. "Oh."

Faith was beside the further of the two beds, and was holding up a brilliantly pink suitcase adorned with 'Hello Kitty!' decals. With a growing sense of dread, Buffy moved to check beside the nearer bed. Sure enough, there was a small pile of luggage on the floor there also that they hadn't noticed when they came in.

"Darn," Buffy sighed. "Okay, we'll just have to settle for one of the other rooms is all." To say that Faith looked unhappy would have been an understatement. Even so, she gathered up her pack and the smaller girl's duffel with only a few muttered obscenities. Buffy herself would miss those huge windows, but figured that every room would otherwise be set up pretty much exactly the same, so at least the downgrade would be bearable.

* * * * *

"Um...." She was actually dazed by what they'd found, and it took her several seconds to find her voice after that first involuntary word. "Okay, they're _kidding_, right?"

The room next door might as well have been on another continent, given how different it was from the first one. Barely half the size of the corner room, it featured low, metal-framed beds, plain white walls, and a pair of desks that looked like they'd been bought at Office Depot. The computers looked to be the same, though with smaller, cheaper monitors... and there were no laptops. The door of the one small closet was only a couple of feet from the bathroom, and when Buffy peered cautiously inside she felt physically ill. A single sink, small mirror, toilet and shower; no bathtub at all... and the room was barely big enough for her to turn around in without bumping into something. She spared a single glance for the florescent light overhead, and then she stalked angrily back into the larger room.

Such as it was.

Faith turned to look at her, and Buffy saw her own opinion of the place mirrored in that starkly beautiful face.

"Screw _this_," the tall girl growled. Buffy nodded in agreement.

"Fifty different _kinds_ of 'no'," she said emphatically, then paused and peered around uncertainly. "I wonder why they did this; did the construction company pocket most of the cash for these other rooms and think nobody would ever notice, or...?"

Faith shrugged, looking down and dragging the toe of her boot across the thin, commercial-grade carpeting.

"Do you really want to stand around and worry about that right now?" she asked. Buffy gave her a tight, mirthless smile.

"When you put it that way, not so much, no." She marched towards the door. "C'mon, let's readjust our housing situation while we have the chance." Faith was right behind her as she re-entered the corner room and dropped her belongings. Moving like they'd practiced it, each girl went to a bed, gathered up the luggage there, and carried it out into the hall. In unison they tossed it all into an untidy pile. Buffy did an about-face, and walked back inside. Faith closed the door behind them, and they both took a moment to look around at their wonderful room.

"Glad we got here before anybody else," she said, pushing her long, purple hair back from her face. "'Cause those other rooms really suck." Buffy smiled as she strolled over and folded her arms, considering the layout of the furniture, especially as it pertained to the sleeping situation.

"That's what I hear," she said absently, then looked over her shoulder at the other girl. "So. Who gets which bed?"

* * * * *

Not long after the two of them had claimed their room, Faith found a small stack of papers sitting beside each of the computers. Included there was a copy of the day's schedule, and a mandatory assembly was scheduled to begin in a little less than two hours.

"That gives us time to look around a little beforehand, if you want," Buffy said, looking up when she finished reading through her handout. Faith, having skipped the reading part, was now busy jumping up and down on her bed (the bed that Buffy had wanted, only she'd lost the coin toss). In answer to the other girl's comment she made a neutral sound that could have been either positive or negative, and kept going with the bouncing. Something odd was going on there, and Buffy had to watch for several seconds before she realized what was bothering her. At the top of each bounce, Faith was hanging in midair for maybe a half-second longer than she should have. It wasn't levitation; it wasn't even blatantly obvious.

It was, however, awfully neat to watch.

"Um, anyway," she said eventually, blinking and looking back down at the schedule. "We have time, so why stay in here when we can go check things out?"

Faith made that same, indecipherable sound, and ended her last bounce with a boneless flop backwards that left her sprawled atop the ornate comforter.

"Whatever," the girl added after a moment. "It's not like we're gonna miss out on seeing the whole place later, since we'll be here for days and weeks and months." Buffy, moving to retrieve several items from her luggage, smiled faintly.

"This is true. What I _really_ want to do is meet some of the other students. Since we'll be here for 'days and weeks and months', it's probably a good idea to start figuring out which ones are worth getting to know, and which ones we want to avoid, right?" Faith propped herself up on her elbows and regarded Buffy through a veil of mussed purple hair.

"After what I did to that Xander guy, I'd think the assholes would know enough to steer clear. But hey; if you wanna go scope things out anyway it's cool with me. Maybe I'll find somebody else who needs to be cut down to size." She looked genuinely hopeful when she said that, and the blonde almost regretted her earlier decision.

_Ack! I really hope this girl isn't as far out there as she seems. One minute she's all mysterious and hyper-deadly, the next she's bouncing around like a ten-year-old who's never seen a nice bed before, then she's right back into bloodthirsty mode. I'm starting to think this is not the world's most stable person I'm dealing with here._

Still, she had to admit that having someone like Faith on her side would be to her advantage. Also there was the thing where kicking the girl to the curb now would mean having an angry Faith lurking in random hallways, looking to even the score....

"Okay then!" Buffy exclaimed brightly. "Give me ten minutes to repair this damage and then we're good to go." Faith waved a hand in what was apparently agreement, then dropped back to lie on the bed, raking the hair back from her face and staring at the ceiling. Carrying an awkward armload of supplies, Buffy made her way into the bathroom, deposited it all on the counter, and started figuring out where everything was going to go.

_Curling iron here, hair dryer beside it--nice that there's plenty of outlets in here--moisturizing crèmes here, facial scrubs, the make-up is going to have to have a whole area all to itself, somewhere...._

Since Faith had gotten the better bed--in the far corner, where the one girl going back and forth to the bathroom wouldn't constantly be waking the other as she tried to sleep--Buffy felt no guilt in claiming the larger portion of the available counter for herself. After she had the basics arranged to her satisfaction, she looked in the mirror, sighed, and started working on her hair. The two collisions outside had loosened the clips holding part of the arrangement in place, so she had to take it all down and do it again from the beginning.

"Hope I didn't freak you out too much, out there," Faith said from the other room. "With the knives and stuff, I mean." Buffy, busy brushing the minor snags out of her silky blonde mane, paused for a moment at the genuine concern she heard lurking in the other girl's voice.

"No, you didn't...." she said, slowly. "I mean, you did freak me out, yes, but I've seen things like that before. Violent things, I mean." Looking into her reflection's eyes, she grimaced, and went back to her brushing.

"That deal at your high school?" Faith asked. Buffy nodded, realized the girl couldn't see her, and answered out loud.

"Yeah, the deal at my high school. Those were--" Monsters. They'd been monsters; horrible, deformed, and bloodthirsty. "--They were really, really bad guys," she finished, reaching out to turn on the faucet. Her makeup was smudged too, of course, and she scrubbed it away with a damp washcloth so she could redo that as well.

"So...." the other girl said after a minute's silence. "This whole deal with you being sent here to the super-special school for muties is because of that?" Buffy frowned into the mirror, a little irritated by Faith's relentless curiosity. It wasn't an unreasonable question, though, and she could certainly understand wanting to know more about the new girl.

"Basically, yes," she said as she resumed scrubbing. "Mom was worried about my 'violent behavior'; I think she's scared I'm going to turn into one of those crazy people with the costumes and the bank robberies and the FBI wanted posters." She heard a laugh out in the other room.

"Dude. With the shit I can do, robbing a bank would be _so_ fucking easy. How long to you think it'd take me to carve through one of those big vaults? Like, two minutes?" Buffy laughed right back.

"Yeah, and how many times do you think you'd get _shot_ during those two minutes? Can you knock down bullets as easy as you blocked that bar Xander threw at you?" A sort of sullen silence was her answer, and she grinned to herself at the minor victory.

_Maybe I can keep her from doing anything_ too _stupid, and in return she can watch my back for me. Having someone to do that would have been really handy while I was fighting those vampire guys in L.A._

A few sounds of movement came to her while she finished wiping her face and started on pinning up her hair, though she didn't think anything of it until Faith spoke up again.

"Okay, maybe you're not robbing banks, but you musta made _some_ kind of score. Because this is a _lot_ of loot!" That brought her up short, and she stopped what she was doing and walked to the doorway so she could look out into the room.

Faith was sitting cross-legged on the bed; on _Buffy's_ bed, with both of the girl's smaller suitcases open in front of her. Piles of clothing, cases, boxes and bags were all around her, and she looked up with an innocent expression on her face.

"What?"

Buffy tried for a look of thunderous fury, and had to settle for a bemused scowl.

"'What'? How about 'What do you think you're _doing_'?" Faith, completely unfazed by the scowl, just smirked her little smirk.

"I guess I'm either helping you unpack, or snooping through your shit; whichever one ends up with you not booting me through the window." Buffy's lips twitched, though she managed to keep from smiling.

"That would definitely be the unpacking one," she said. Faith nodded.

"Exactly. Like I said: I'm helping you unpack." She leaned over and poked one pile with a slender finger. "Did you know you have nineteen different kinds of stuff to put on your hair? Look, here's shampoo and conditioner, which I'm totally cool with, but then you go crazy with the hair glaze, spray-on hair glitter, intensive conditioning treatment, anti-frizz serum, split-ends repair, hair spray, mousse to keep your hair straight, mousse to keep your hair curly, mousse that says it works better than either of the other two, hair volumizer, spray that protects your hair from the sun, spray that makes your hair look like it's been in the sun, some 'shimmer & shine for blondes', a kit for 'honey-gold highlights', and something called 'intensive restructuring formula' that I don't even _know_ what it's supposed to do...." She sorted through the multicolored array of cans, bottles and tubes, an increasingly awestruck expression on her face. "You even have more than one brand of some of them; there's three kinds of shampoo and _five_ kinds of conditioner...." Buffy watched the other girl going through her things and wondered why her usual indignant anger hadn't shown up on cue. If she'd caught anyone else invading her privacy like this, the ambulance would already be on its way to retrieve the wounded. Now, however, she only shook her head as she leaned over, picked a fresh blouse out of one pile, and went back into the bathroom.

"It's not _that_ bad," she said, pulling off the blouse with the torn and bloodied sleeve. Standing there in her bra and skirt she checked her arm; the scrapes on the elbow were completely scabbed-over, though it would be another couple of hours before the new skin finished growing in. "I mean, you're a girl too. You spend time on makeup and everything, and obviously that hair didn't get to be purple all on it's own." Busy cleaning dried blood off of her arm, she paused, considered that last bit, and then called out again.

"That hair _didn't_ get to be purple all on its own, did it?" Because if being a mutant could let people fly, and heal, and bend steel bars with their bare hands, then some unusual hair probably wasn't such a big deal....

"No, that was me," she heard the other girl say. "I thought it would look pretty bad-ass if I dyed it to match my knives." More sounds of rummaging reached her, then the _snapclick_ of her second, larger makeup kit being opened. "Gee, what a surprise; a metric shitload of moisturizer and body lotion and revitalizing crème... and what looks like basically the whole cosmetics aisle of your average trendy boutique." Buffy sighed as she pulled the clean blouse over her head, and checked in the mirror to make sure her hair was still in place.

"Okay, okay; I'll admit it. I spend lots of time in girly-girl mode. I like dressing up, and I like looking nice."

The water in the sink was still running, and Faith dropped her voice to a whispered mumble, but Buffy's ears still caught her reply.

"Well, mission accomplished there, miss girly-girl, 'cause you're definitely lookin' _wicked_ nice from where I'm standing...."

Buffy stopped her artful arrangement of a few dangly tendrils of hair, grinned at her reflection, then cleared her throat loudly.

"Hey, Faith?"

"Yeah?"

She leaned around the corner of the doorway and gave the girl her best attempt at helpful, wide-eyed innocence.

"Remember when I told you I have super-sensitive hearing? Well, I _wasn't_ kidding." Faith looked at her for a long moment, motionless as a deer staring into headlights, and then blinked, turned her head, and seemed to see the contents of the second open suitcase for the first time.

"Great shoes there, B," she said, her careless tone doing nothing to hide the flush that momentarily tinted her pale face pink. Buffy nodded amiably, pretending that she hadn't seen.

"Yep. Dad lets me do all kinds of damage to his credit card when it's his turn for a weekend with me." She leaned over to snag the kit holding her makeup, itself as large as some people's overnight bags. Carrying it into the bathroom, she sorted through until she found what she needed for a quick once-over. It wasn't like she was going on a date or anything, of course. Still, there was no way she was going to meet a small crowd of high-school girls with a shiny nose, or any hint of even a tiny pimple showing. While her hands worked at that, her mind was replaying all the looks Faith had been giving her since that first moment out in front of the school. Added to what she'd just heard, it was pretty obvious what was going on.

_Faith has a girl-crush, Faith has a girrrrl-cruuuush!_ she sang silently, carefully keeping her amusement within the privacy of her own thoughts. _God, I love it when people get all smitten with me._

It was, after all, far from the first time it had happened. Being one of the prettiest and most popular girls at her old school had some great benefits: free rides to school, home, or almost anywhere else she wanted to go, nerdy types eager to do her homework for her, and a nearly endless supply of jocks lining up for the privilege of dating her. She'd restricted herself to a select few, of course; nobody respected someone with a reputation as a slut.

"I can't help noticin' that all seven pairs are high-heels."

Buffy, brushing powder across her nose with a soft brush, made a sound of protest.

"All seven pairs are very _expensive_ high heels, thank you very much," she huffed theatrically. "And when you're basically five-foot nothing, like me, heels are a necessity, not an accessory." More movement out on the bed, and more sounds of the other girl sorting through the luggage.

"Seriously, B; you didn't bring one pair of tennis shoes?"

Buffy turned her head from side to side, inspecting her reflection critically, decided it would have to do, and then started with the eyeliner.

"I don't play tennis," she said absently, concentrating on her task.

"Yeah, but what if you want to jog, or have to run away from someone?"

She switched to the other eye, and for the thousandth time thanked whatever genetic quirk had given her enhanced coordination as one of her mutant gifts; it _really_ saved her time with this sort of thing.

"Why in the world would I want to go jogging? And I don't run away from things, either. They either leave me alone or I bludgeon them until they _have_ to leave me alone." A quick pass over her lips with her favorite cherry-flavored lip-gloss, and she was all set. Strolling out into the room, she found Faith looking down at the contents of the huge duffel she'd lugged upstairs earlier. Those dark eyes raised to her own, and they were wide with disbelief.

"You didn't bring any normal shoes, but you packed a set of sheets, a blanket, and your own pillow?"

Buffy tilted her head in puzzlement.

"Sure, doesn't everybody?"

Faith laughed, and in that unguarded moment she looked years younger than the blonde had first placed her.

"Only crazy people, far as I know." She reached behind her and pulled down the exquisitely made comforter. There were two pillows there, in satin slipcases, and she tossed one to Buffy. "See? I'm guessin' most places give those to you as part of the whole 'bed' thing, you know?" The smaller girl examined the pillow, and her lip curled in distaste.

"Ew. This has _feathers_ in it. If I sleep on this, my face will break out like crazy--I'll look like a plague victim by morning." Faith looked at her searchingly for a minute, apparently trying to decide if she was being serious.

"Okay, and the sheets? No feathers there."

Buffy shook her head, putting out a hand to touch the finely-made sheets.

"Too rough; I'd toss and turn all night and never get any sleep. Mine are Egyptian cotton. You wouldn't _believe_ how big a difference there is."

Faith half-grinned, and looked at her sidelong.

"You're totally screwing with me here, right?"

"Not at all. My skin is very sensitive." Buffy looked at the pillow she was still holding, and looked for something to do with it. Just holding the feather-filled thing was starting to make her itch. Before she could spot a suitable place to toss it, they were both startled by the door to the room suddenly swinging open.

"Hey!" A girl she'd never seen before was standing there, glaring at both of them in a very unfriendly fashion.

"Can I help you?" Buffy asked politely.

"Don't you know how to fucking knock?" Faith said, somewhat less politely.

The girl looked from one to the other, and made a curt gesture at the pile of stuff in the hallway behind her.

"Why are all my things out here? What are you two doing in my room?!"

Buffy gave her a friendly, entirely fake smile.

"I think I saw the bellhop person put your luggage there; terrible service in this place, really. You should complain to the manager."

Faith twisted around on the bed till she was propped on one elbow, with the fingers of the other hand moving idly over the tight leather covering her hip.

"And we're not in your room, you're in _our_ room. I think the only one still open is next door... which is a shame because that place is a real shithole." The girl's face was perfectly composed as she said it; it was her dark eyes that sparkled with glee. The stranger in the doorway sputtered, her voice rising in both pitch and volume.

"I _am_ going to complain! About both of you! If you think for one _second_ that you can steal my room out from under--_Oooph_!"

Even though the feather pillow was soft, it still had some weight to it. So when Buffy flicked it across the room, and straight into the girl's belly with a flicker-swift sideways snap of her arm, it folded her over with a pained wheeze. She stumbled backwards three steps, gasping for breath, and Faith made a little gesture with her hand that slammed the door in her face. The two girls looked at each other for several seconds. Then:

"Seriously?" Faith said from her position sprawled on the bed. "You really have some kind of princess and the pea thing where you have to sleep on sheets of Nigerian silk--"

"They're Egyptian cotton! Jeez, what is it that's so hard to believe? Some of us are more refined than you ruffians, you know, with your motorcycles and your tattoos and all the... street lingo...." Faith snorted.

"Yeah, you're a delicate flower all right. If I look through those bags some more am I gonna find a box of those disposable toilet seat covers, to protect your oh-so-pure backside from all the nasty-bad germs and stuff that are out to get you?"

Buffy folded her hands primly and raised her nose a precise fraction higher.

"My personal hygiene... precautions... are none of your business young lady!" She couldn't keep the smile from stealing over her lips as she said it, and Faith grinned back at her. Then Buffy went mock-serious, and marched over to the other bed. "And it occurs to me that if it's okay for you to 'help' me with unpacking, I can do the same for you." A coy glance over her shoulder showed Faith bolting upright with a look of genuine alarm. The girl was on her feet in an instant, and across the room in seconds--too late to prevent Buffy from snatching up the backpack.

"Hey!" Faith said, loudly, trying to grab it out of the smaller girl's hands. "You don't need to look in there. I'm sorry about getting in your shit--c'mon!" Buffy danced back, ducked under an outstretched arm, and skipped nimbly around the end of the bed and up the other side, always managing to keep the backpack out of Faith's reach.

"Looky there, the big girl can't get her bag away from the little girl," she said, her voice smug. "And all with me in high heels, too; imagine that."

Faith stopped, and stood there glowering at her.

"Fine. Okay, go ahead and look. Fair's fair, like you said." Buffy, suspecting a trick, slowly pulled the top flap open, still keeping her eyes on the other girl. Feeling around inside with one hand, she pursed her lips in disapproval.

"Ha, cigarettes. What a shock."

"Yeah, yeah; so I'm a cliche. Gimme," Faith said, reaching out to take the little package the blonde had held up. She withdrew one of the cigarettes from the package and put it to her lips, lighting it with a small lighter she'd somehow managed to jam into her pants pocket. Buffy shook her head, though her only comment was: "My clothes and sheets had better not end up smelling like smoke."

Faith rolled her eyes, but moved back around the bed to the window. Sliding it up to let in the outside air, she perched one hip on the sill and sat there, watching Buffy. The blonde girl nodded, satisfied, and peered down into the depths of the pack.

"Hmm. A blouse, in an odd shade of purple-slash-cranberry--"

"Matches the--" Faith started to say.

"--the knives," Buffy finished for her. "Okay, alright, I get the color scheme thing you've got going on here." She set the wadded up garment on the bed and reached in again. "A pair of jeans, of the hip-hugger variety," she set those aside as well, firmly suppressing a faintly naughty thought which involved Faith changing into those jeans while Buffy watched. "Um, chewing gum, tropical fruit flavored... running shoes, Adidas... a bag of suckers--looks like someone has an oral fixation, hmm?" Nearly at the bottom of the pack, she'd nearly given up on finding anything interesting when--

"...And then a little something belonging to John Rambo...." She pulled the object out and held it up. It was a knife--a real one, made of steel, in a black leather sheath. Glancing at Faith, she pulled it free and looked at the blade. It was a familiar shape: a wickedly-barbed thing with gleaming edges and a double point. "This is...?"

"My old one," Faith said, pausing to blow a stream of smoke towards the open window. "That's the one I used before the mutant power thing showed up. I guess that's why my blades look the way they do; my mind made 'em something I was comfortable with. Or something like that." She turned her head and looked outside as she took another drag on her cigarette. For her part, Buffy looked at the knife more closely. This wasn't a showpiece, good for nothing besides being hung on some wall. The thing was a functional, deadly weapon, and even though it was carefully cared for, there were scratches and nicks that hadn't happened while it was sitting somewhere gathering dust.

"'The one you used'?" Buffy repeated questioningly. That got her nothing except some really good ignorage from the other girl, so she put the knife down on the bed. There was only one thing left in the bottom of the pack, a cloth-covered bundle about as big as a child's lunchbox. She lifted it with both hands, almost afraid to look inside. Carefully unwrapping it, she found it held... money. A startled sound escaped her, and several bundles of bills dropped back inside the backpack.

"What is this? Faith?" The other girl shrugged, avoiding her gaze.

"About four thousand dollars, last time I counted it." Buffy stared at the purple-haired stranger, and wondered again just what she'd gotten into because of one hasty decision.

"And you got four thousand dollars _how_?" Faith finally met her eyes, shifted her cigarette to her right hand, and held up the left. Violet light flared, and a twin to the metal knife appeared in her hand, this one made of that strange energy. A moment later it faded and was gone. Buffy blinked, and took a slow breath. "Oh."

"Yeah."

They sat there for several minutes, neither one speaking. When Faith's cigarette burned low she tossed the butt out the window and lit another. Buffy stood looking at the money. It was mostly small bills, fives, tens and twenties, with the occasional hundred. The kind of thing most any corner market or liquor store might have in its register. A few of the bills on top of the stacks were speckled with rust-brown spots that could have been dried blood. She knew what dried blood looked like because vampires bled when she fought them. They bled a _lot_ when she fought them... and then they didn't do much of anything at all.

Buffy tried to pin down what she was feeling, and couldn't. Things weren't always black and white, she knew that from her experiences over the last few months, after her mutant powers had manifested themselves. Whatever Faith had done, did anyone else have the right to judge her? More specifically, did Buffy have the right to judge her?

_And what do I do about it, anyway? Call the police? Report her to the Principal? What if somebody at my old school had turned_ me _in? Would that have been fair? Would it have made things better?_ She knew the answer to that one. Without her, even more of the students would have been killed, especially the night of the dance. _So maybe I should just keep my mouth shut, keep my head down, and concentrate on not getting involved with the police for awhile, right?_ Nodding to herself, Buffy looked up at the other girl, opened her mouth--and whipped her head around to look at the door.

"Whoops!" Moving with more-than-human speed, she dropped the rest of the cash into the backpack, threw the knife after it, and stuffed Faith's clothes in on top. Dropping the pack to the floor by her feet, she looked up, pasted a bored expression on her face, and--

--The door slammed open, revealing their little friend from before, and another girl of about the same age. Faith, who'd been watching Buffy's frantic movements in confusion, shifted easily into a look of annoyance.

"Okay, what did I tell you about knocking?"

The first girl, the one with the red hair from before, stepped boldly into the room. Jabbing her finger towards Buffy, she spoke in a loud, determined voice.

"My name is Cassandra Vandeveer, and this is _my_ room!" Her friend stepped forward to take up a position at the other's shoulder.

"We were here first!" she declared in a somewhat higher voice. "Our things were in here, and you threw them out in the hall!"

Buffy turned with studied deliberation to look at Faith.

"Her name is Cassandra Vandeveer."

"I heard. That supposed to mean something?"

Buffy frowned.

"I think so, or she wouldn't have announced it like that."

Cassandra, watching this exchange, grew visibly more agitated by the second.

"We were here! We put our things in here, so it's ours!" She pointed again, this time at Faith. "And you can't be smoking in here, either! Not in our room, not even inside the building!" The tall girl's eyebrows rose, and she took a long, deliberate inhale, then blew it in the direction of the ranting redhead.

"Wanna come over here and do something about it?"

The second intruder, the one with short black hair, put her hand on Cassandra's arm to hold her back.

"Let's just get our things, and put them back in here." She glared at them both. "We'll stay in here and call one of the staff; _they'll_ straighten these two out for us."

Buffy, who had idly pulled the covers on Faith's bed back so that she could pick up a pillow, looked across at her friend.

"They're going to get their things. The ones we threw out in the hall."

Faith nodded sagely.

"Throwing things out into the hall is wrong. We should never do that again."

"Never ever," Buffy agreed. Then she looked at the two girls standing there, looking back at them, and smiled.

"Look out--" the black-haired one yelled, and then she _split_. Her outline blurred, and it was like another of her, a perfect copy, stepped forward while the original stayed where she'd been standing. An instant later, and another copy stepped into existence too, leaving the first version slightly behind the two new ones. Beside her, Cassandra Vandeveer's eyes were glowing with pale light, and Buffy's head suddenly felt like it was going to explode.

"Whoa_okayohcrapohwhatisahhhh--_" She grabbed at the bed to keep herself upright as the entire room seemed to flip completely upside down, flip again, and then keep right on flipping, faster and faster while her head hurt so badly she thought her ears might start bleeding. It was nearly impossible to pick out any details of what was happening around her, but she thought she heard Cassandra give a mocking laugh, just as Faith called out:

Hey! Whiny girl! You want some of her you gotta take me, too. So have some!"

Buffy heard a grunt, then another, and suddenly the room righted itself and her head began to clear. She saw Faith, still standing across the bed from her, make a motion like she was slapping someone hard across the face. Across the room, Cassandra's whole body was slammed sideways, right into the doorframe. Apparently she'd been knocked backwards several steps before the sideways thing started, and now she was bouncing back and forth, from side to side, her head smacking hard into the door jamb each time as Faith telekinetically bitchslapped her, first one way and then the other. The second girl was still standing stock-still, while her two duplicates stalked towards the intently-concentrating Faith. One picked up a chair along the way, and the other grabbed a heavy lamp from the table beside the door. Buffy hefted her pillow, gauged the distance and angle, and let fly. This time it wasn't a quick little flick of her arm, either; this time she wound up like a pitcher in the major leagues. The fluffy projectile flashed across the room with a rush of displaced air, and took the motionless girl full in the face and chest. Whatever sound she made was lost in the impact, and muffled by the pillow itself. She went hurtling backwards, her feet actually leaving the ground in the process, and collided with her friend in the doorway--hard. Together the two of them tumbled out into the hall, came up against the far wall, and ended up in a tangled, groaning heap. The duplicates flickered and vanished in mid-step the instant the pillow hit, their improvised weapons dropping to the thick carpet.

Buffy sighed, took a quick look around to make sure the floor and ceiling were staying where they belonged, then looked over at Faith.

"Like I was saying, we need to know which people are okay to hang out with." Faith nodded in understanding.

"And which ones are the losers, that aren't worth our time. Got it."

Buffy looked down at the backpack on the floor beside her, and used one stylishly-outfitted foot to nudge it underneath the bed.

"So," she said, "Wanna go and meet some people?"

Faith shrugged, took a last drag on her cigarette, and flicked it out through the window.

"Might as well. We still have lots of time to kill before that orientation thing, right?"

They walked across the room, spent a few seconds putting the chair and lamp back in their proper places, then exited their room. Faith closed the door behind them, and Buffy stepped daintily over the tangled limbs of the two semi-conscious girls. Behind her, she heard Faith stop just long enough to deliver a few parting words.

"You guys are lucky, aren't you? Not even unpacked yet, and you're already learning things at your new school. Like, for example, _our room!_ Got that? _Ours!_" She waited till she got a woozy nod from each of them before standing up straight again and catching up to Buffy. The blonde girl gave her companion a little smile, and got a smirk back. They headed down the hall, looking for someone interesting enough to talk to, and then something occurred to her.

"Wait a second. You can move things with your mind!" Faith, busy peeking into rooms as they passed open doors, spared her the sort of look usually reserved for idiots and small children.

"B, I think the only word I can use in response here is 'Duh'." Buffy shook her head violently, then stopped and felt her hair to make sure she hadn't loosened her updo again.

"No, I mean, you can move things with your mind, and we _flipped a coin_ to decide who got the better bed!"

"Uh huh. So?"

Buffy shoved the taller girl on the shoulder with one hand, hard enough to bounce her lightly off the wall of the hallway.

"So?! Did you cheat?!"

Faith, rubbing at her shoulder and grinning, didn't say a word.

* * * * *


	3. Three Mean Girls

**'Three Mean Girls'**

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Author's Note: Hello, and welcome to Chapter Six! Or possibly Chapter Seven!

(O_O)

Okay, sorry about this. I AM going to pick up where Chapter Two left off... next chapter. This one, however, jumps forward a short ways along the timeline. What can I say, a plot bunny appeared out of nowhere (Glares at JOE), and I had to get it down. I intentionally wrote around certain things, to minimize spoilers, but if you'd rather wait a couple of months, until the story catches up with this installment, I completely understand.  
(That's actually the sort of thing I would do.)  
In the meanwhile, here this is, if you wanna read it.  
As always I thank you for your attention, and will greet reviews with plentiful tears of joy.  
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Now, quiet on the set, and.... Action!  
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10 Days, 12 Hours and 53 minutes ago:

--And the new girl, the short blonde one, was _letting_ it happen! She was just standing there, all aloof and unconcerned, checking her face in a mirrored compact. She was more worried about how she'd maybe bruised her cute little nose when she'd gotten knocked down again than she was about the way the other girl was attacking Xander!

"Xander! Don't!" He didn't listen; he was too busy sneering at the girl, daring her to try and hurt him, and taking wild swings with the metal bar he'd picked up off the ground. Willow looked pleadingly at the little blonde again. "Do something! Stop them!" Buffy barely glanced at her before going back to examining her face.

"I'm not the boss of her," she said absently. "And he's _your_ friend, not mine." Then, apparently satisfied that she was still pretty to an utterly unfair degree, she put the compact away and watched the two opponents close in on each other. Far from trying to stop the fight from happening, the girl actually looked interested... and even a little _pleased_ at the spectacle! "Besides," Buffy added, "He can't really be hurt, right?"

Willow, giving up on any help from that quarter, could only bite her lip helplessly as her oldest friend tried his best to be macho and formidable, like his favorite movie actors.

_He's so reckless, now that he thinks he's invincible!_ she lamented to herself. _All these years, growing up as the kid everyone picked on, and now he gets to play the tough guy action-hero... only I don't like the looks of that girl at _all!

The second girl, the one with the long purple hair, didn't seem the least bit scared of Xander. She watched him advance, she smiled and skipped aside when he swung at her, and she answered his taunts with silence. Even though her hands were empty, there was something disturbing about her confidence... although Willow probably would have been more confident herself if _she_ were all hot, and cleavagey and effortlessly sexy. Darn it.

What happened next was almost too fast for Willow to follow. Xander swung the bar at the girl, and she did something. Somehow she produced a blazing, violet-hued weapon from empty air, used it to chop the iron bar in half, and then leapt forward and slashed the boy's throat.

There were other details in there, lost in the shock and tears that blurred Willow's vision, but those were the essentials. The girl took his throat out, and then she produced a _second_ weapon and used it to slice longways up his torso, cutting deeply into his stomach and chest with ghastly ease.

Willow screamed, and Xander fell back, crashing onto the ground. She ran forward and knelt at his side, drowning in waves of horror and revulsion even as her hands worked frantically to try and push loops of intestines (and other, unidentifiable things) back where they belonged. Blood was everywhere, and Xander convulsed uncontrollably, his eyes wild and unseeing.

Racked by sobs, trying her best to gather enough concentration to use her healing talent, Willow caught a last glimpse of Buffy and the other girl. They were walking away like nothing had happened, carrying their luggage inside the building without a single backwards glance.

Her head spinning in an overload of terror and sick disbelief, Willow's powers deserted her. All she could do for Xander was scream for someone to help them. Scream, and scream... and scream.

* * * * *

2 Days, 7 hours and 44 minutes ago:

"C'mon Jesse! Show her you're da man!"

Xander, long since recovered from his injuries (and some later, equally-serious wounds too) stood beside Willow and shouted encouragement to their new friend. She did her best to join in, though her calls went something like:

"Yay! Go! Hit her and... um, don't let her hit you back! Or at all, actually; don't let her hit you even if you don't hit her, Jesse!"

Willow couldn't help it, she hated this. The academic aspect of the school was everything that had been promised, absolutely. Only... well, there was also _this_. A huge training area on the school grounds that was dedicated to helping the students 'master' their special abilities. And somehow, gaining that mastery seemed to include frequent sparring matches between the more physically empowered individuals, and even team vs. team battles complete with simulated weapons and mock environments to make it more realistic.

Willow was very much a non-combatant, so she wasn't required to participate. Still, it worried her, watching the others go at it. Even this, a relatively tame sparring match, scared her.

Although she had to admit, it would be wonderfully satisfying to see Jesse trounce Buffy Summers.

"Fight smart, Jesse!" Xander shouted from the safety of their elevated vantage point. "Don't let her get close enough to use those tiny fists on you, bro!"

Out on the field, the tall, lanky young man was doing his best to comply. Seconds after the match had begun, he'd already unleashed his power. Crouching to put his palms on the ground at his feet, a blaze of fierce blue-white light flared from the point of contact. He backed quickly away, keeping his hands against the earth as he moved, and in his wake there was... nothing. A gaping trench opened up in the ground, the grass and dirt there simply vanishing, leaving a gap more than ten feet wide and ten feet deep.

Buffy, on the other hand, had simply waited for the signal to begin, and when it came she ran forward.

She ran really, really _fast_.

They'd started the match about a hundred feet apart, and to the onlookers it seemed as if she crossed the distance in less than three heartbeats. Jesse saw it, and leapt back, abandoning his digging. Willow knew that the plan, worked out with Xander, had been to create a moat, with Jesse left standing on an island of level ground in the center. That way he would be safely out of the girl's reach, and yet still able to attack her at a distance. Now, however, it was clear that it wouldn't happen that way. He wouldn't have time to complete the barrier, so he didn't try. Instead, he waited to see which side of the trench Buffy would take as she ran forward. When she swerved right, and came at him, he sprinted forward and left, to keep the deep ditch between them for a critical few seconds. And, as they came abreast of each other, Jesse raised his hands and opened fire.

Pulses of that blue-white light shot from his hands, flying at the blonde girl like smaller versions of the photon torpedoes from Xander's favorite sci-fi television show. They were fainter than they could have been; this was a pretend fight, after all. Even so, Willow knew that if they were to hit Buffy, they would instantly dissolve their way right through her clothing, and through several layers of skin too, leaving a very painful, burn-type wound. The tiny blonde, however, despite being so girly and feminine in every other way, seemed oddly indifferent to such things. The only concession to safety she made were the streamlined goggles that protected her eyes from a chance hit.

Not that there was likely to _be_ a hit. Jesse's energy spheres were fast, about as fast as a well-thrown baseball... but that simply wasn't fast enough. Buffy leapt, a long, high bound that carried her over the first two spheres, and when she came back down she went instantly into a forward roll, came up and dove forward and under another glowing projectile, leapt high again, spinning and rolling in midair to let another pair pass in front of and behind her, and managed to come down on her feet--still running. The series of moves was so fluid that it looked flatly impossible for anything human, and Xander fell abruptly silent. Not so, the observers clustered to their left.

"Yeah, B! He can't touch you with that shit! Show him he can't touch you! Smash his _face_ in!" Faith's shouts were the loudest, but a dozen other students, male and female both, were cheering right alongside her. Willow noticed that the tall girl's hands were clenched on the railing before her, like she was having to restrain herself from leaping over it and joining in alongside her roommate.

When she looked back at the field, she was shocked to see the fight come to a sudden end. Jesse fired another disintegration sphere, and now that things were at much closer range it looked like it would hit. Then, somehow, at a full sprint, Buffy's body leaned far back, and one heel planted deeply into the grass in front of her. She came to an instant stop that made Willow wince; human bones would have splintered like dry sticks under that kind of stress. Buffy, not being human, didn't even bother watching the glowing orb flash past in front of her. Instead she blurred into motion once again, this time right _at_ the trench... and of course she leapt over it.

Not, however, _straight_ over it, as Jesse had expected. Anticipating her move, he unleashed a two-fisted barrage at where he'd thought she would be... only to miss as she launched herself diagonally, at an ankle-snapping angle to her original path. She landed barely ten feet from him, launched herself forward and upwards, and passed over her taller opponent while fully upside down, her head within inches of his own. Her hands clamped onto his upper arms along the way, and a wrenching, snapping movement of her entire body flipped her groundwards--and right side up--even as it yanked Jesse bodily off his feet, up and over her head. Using his momentum as well as her own metahuman strength, she continued the movement and slammed Jesse facedown on the ground at her feet. Not as hard as she _could_ have, true, but still _hard_.

Willow winced again; she almost thought she could feel that impact through the ground beneath her. Xander groaned, the sound lost an instant later by the wild victory screams of Faith and the other members of the Buffy fan club. Someone fired three silvery energy bolts skyward in celebration, and a crackling bolt of lightning followed an instant later. Out on the field, a barely-mussed Buffy was prodding Jesse with one foot, her expression insufferably smug. When she spoke, the distance rendered it inaudible, but Willow could read her lips well enough to make it out.

"Wanna go two out of three?" Her fallen foe feebly tried to rise, failed, and shook his head in obvious pain. Buffy toed him again, a little harder. "I didn't think so. Loser." With a cute little smile and a bounce in her step, she walked towards the steps that led up to the observation area.

"What an incredible bit--ah, incredibly mean person," Willow grumbled, watching as two training assistants with medical training moved to check Jesse. Beside her, Xander nodded dreamily.

"She's incredible all right...." The redhead frowned, ran that back in her head, then turned and shot him an incredulous look.

"What? After everything she's done to us, everything she's done to _you_, you're still crushing on her?" Xander squirmed uncomfortably under her stare, still sneaking glances at Buffy as she climbed the stairs. The tank top she wore clung to her compact, curvaceous form, and the athletic shorts showed off lots and lots of smooth, golden skin. Pale, gawky, skinny Willow couldn't help being jealous, even more so when 'her' Xander stared at the other girl that way.

"Can't help it, Will," he said, eyes still glued to Buffy's rounded, perfect backside. "I know she's evil--or at the very least unintentionally toxic to carbon-based life forms such as you and I--but I'm still a man. I have the inbuilt man weaknesses to gorgeous girls with blonde hair, and green eyes, and soft... curvy...."

Whatever else he'd been about to say got cut off--literally. Neither of them had taken notice of the other onlookers streaming past behind them, on their way to congratulate (aka: worship at the feet of) their leader. Neither of them noticed Faith walk past just as Xander mentioned the hair and the eyes and the curves. And, unfortunately, neither of them saw her response until it was too late.

The flash of violet light was heartstoppingly familiar, and Willow's mouth was still opening to scream a warning when the blade took Xander low across the back. It cut deeply enough to half-sever his torso from his pelvis, and his spine didn't even slow the blade down as it sliced through him with brutal ease. He collapsed, still unsure of exactly what had happened, his face disbelieving as realization slowly penetrated. Willow, having seen this sort of thing more than once in the recent past, glared hatefully at Faith as she knelt beside him

"That sort of thing's fun for you, isn't it? Isn't it?!" she spat. "You really are as crazy as people say you are!"

Faith smirked back at her, utterly unimpressed.

"Hey, red; I'm not dishing out any more than he can take." She looked down at Xander, and materialized her second dagger, holding them both up so that her face was framed in deadly light. "If I wanted to be mean, if I were to _really_ get pissed, then I'd cut him into little pieces and find some hungry little critters to feed him to--I've been wondering how his 'immortality' would handle _that_." She leaned forward just a little, staring down at the helpless boy, and her voice went scary-soft. "You're never going to have her, little man. She's out of your league, she's taken, and you're never going to _touch_ her." She straightened, and let the glowing blades vanish. "So get over it, keep your mouth shut, and keep your eyes to yourself. Got it?" Not waiting for an answer, she went to join the others of her clique.

Buffy and the rest had been watching the confrontation from a short distance away, where the girl had taken a seat on a bench. One member of her court held out a towel, another offered a bottle of chilled water. She ignored them both for a moment, busy slipping off the pink athletic shoes and pink-trimmed white socks, and replacing them with her trademark high heels. Finishing up, the petite blonde gave Faith a questioning look.

"What's all that about?"

The other girl made a gesture of dismissal.

"Nothin' at all. I think he tripped or something; he's clumsy like that."

Buffy raised one perfect eyebrow in response.

"He _tripped_? And somehow this trippage resulted in his kidneys spilling out on the ground?"

Faith grinned, reached out, and carefully smoothed a stray lock of golden hair back into place.

"Well, there _might_ have been some sort of foul play, but so far the authorities have no leads." Buffy smiled back at her, shaking her head in mock dismay.

"You're being excessive again; we've _talked_ about this. Xander sneaking looks at my butt is _not_ an evisceration-worthy offense." She glanced over at where Willow was kneeling, in blood and other things, and made a displeased little moue. "Remember: if he sneaks a look, stab him once. If he tries to take another picture, cut off his hands." That steady, emerald stare made the redhead wince as she remembered the incident that had occurred the previous Friday. "And if you hear him start up again on how much he'd love to 'do' me... _that's_ when you should start pulling out internal organs."

Faith, watching as the girl used the towel to blot away the few small beads of perspiration the sparring session had generated, just shook her head.

"Okay, B; that's a lot for me to try and remember. Could you maybe make a chart, or type out a manual, or have somebody set up a twenty-four hour help line--ow!" Buffy had reached up, eyes glittering, and given the long purple hair a sharp yank. Faith responded by grabbing the sitting girl around the waist with both hands and lifting her high into the air. Willow knew for a fact that the taller girl didn't have any kind of meta strength. Still, she was fit and strong, and Buffy was tiny. Faith therefore had little difficulty in picking the blonde up, walking three steps, and holding her out over the railing that encircled the training arena. It was a drop of nearly twenty feet if she dropped her, but nobody believed for a second that it would happen.

Besides, if she started to fall, Buffy's hand could flash out and clamp onto the railing in far less than an eyeblink.

"Say you're sorry," Faith growled, with only a trace of strain in her voice.

"I'm sorry!" Buffy cried out, giggling uncontrollably all the while. "I'm really, really sorry...." She bit her lip, eyes wide, then went on in a breathless, conspiratorial, little voice: "I was just trying to start up your brain, Faith, so you could remember better," The tall girl's expression shifted to one of uncertainty, and Buffy reached out to again tug--gently--on one of those long purple tresses. "You know," she continued with total earnestness. "Like those starter-cord thingies you yank on to start up a lawn mower or--Eeek!"

Faith gave the girl a little jerk, then let her drop a few inches, as if she were about to let go. Buffy's shriek turned into helpless laugher, and she kicked her dainty little feet and flailed with her delicate little hands, just like she really was a helpless damsel and not a super-powered fighting machine. Everyone watching knew those small fists battering ineffectually (and ever-so-carefully) at Faith could just as easily have snapped bone, or torn the larger girl's arms from their sockets. When Faith swung her back over the railing and set her down, Buffy grabbed some purple hair again, and tugged at it repeatedly before shaking her head sadly.

"It's no use. Her brain won't start, no matter what I do. We'll have to junk this one and buy a new model. These 'Faith's' don't seem very reliable, do they? Maybe a 'Hope' this time, or a 'Patience'; I hear those are good." Faith, for her part, slid her hands up from where they had gripped Buffy's waist, up along her sides, then over her shoulders and down her arms. Just above the elbow she stopped, then used her finger to rub lightly at that pale gold skin.

"Yeah, well; speaking of defective--" She rubbed more vigorously, then gave the smaller girl a look of pity. "--Yeah, this is bad. That fake tan stuff you use must have been way past the expiration date or something, 'cause you've got some wicked huge freckles coming in all _over_ the place."

Buffy jerked away so abruptly her shoes actually came two feet off the ground. Landing with her usual perfect balance, she was already scanning both arms, turning in place as she tried to see every side of her arms and shoulders at once.

"You had _better_ be kidding, or I will _so_ kick your ass for making a joke about--"

Faith picked her up again, just long enough to turn and aim her towards the mansion before putting her feet back on the ground.

"Of course I'm kidding; you always look killer, killer. Now lets go get some food, huh? It's victory-dinner time" Buffy scowled ferociously up at her, then relaxed into a smile.

"All right, I'll forgive you this time--provided you get me two double cheese pizzas of my very own."

"It's a deal... freckles."

The others, including the two male students who shared the title of 'boyfriend' and constantly competed for the blonde's affections, had laughed all the way through the byplay.

Willow, glaring after them through a blur of frustrated tears and helpless rage, was ashamed to find herself wishing she knew some manner of death-inducing spell.

_Those two are having_ so _much fun here, aren't they? Everything's a joke to them, unless it involves something they want, and then it's more important than anything or anyone._

Willow and Xander, on the other hand, had _not_ been enjoying their time at the new school as much as they'd hoped... mainly thanks to Faith and Buffy.

_They latched onto each other so fast, you'd think they were long-lost sisters or something. It's only been a few days, and I think they're closer to each other than me and Xander; and we've known each other forever. And that's not even counting how I've been completely in love with him all these years--at least the terrible twosome over there won't ever have_ that _kind of connection...._

She sent one last hateful stare after the girls, then started to look away. She _started_ to look away, then stopped short, eyes narrowing.

_Wait a second--!_

The easy familiarity between Faith and Buffy, all the little touches and looks and smiles.... Even now, as they all walked off towards the Mansion, the body language was glaringly obvious. Faith's arm was across Buffy's shoulders in what might have been a casual, friendly sort of way... and wasn't. As Willow watched, the taller girl intentionally blocked boyfriend number two's attempt to sidle up next to the blonde, and shot him a quick, threatening look that made him back off. Buffy, for her part, had her arm curled loosely around Faith's waist, her hand resting on her leather-clad hip. It looked very much like a tired athlete carelessly leaning on a friend for support... and wasn't.

_Oh. My. Gods. When she said Buffy was 'taken', she wasn't talking about the boys, was she? They're--the two of them are actually... together?_

She blinked, shook her head, and frowned.

Maybe they were, maybe not. Probably not, given what she'd heard about Buffy's reluctance to actually do the... sex... thing... with either of her boyfriends so far. Apparently the oh-so-perfect Buffy required a long trial period before she could be certain that someone was worthy of being intimate with her magnificient self. So maybe she and Faith weren't _actually_ doing anything.

Yet.

But it was now very obvious that Faith _wanted_ something to happen. And it sure looked like Buffy was seriously considering _letting_ it happen.

"Uh, Will? Hello, lying here sort of in pieces. How 'bout a little help?" She gave a start, looked down, and gasped in dismay, realizing that she'd been ignoring Xander for a good minute or so now.

"Ack! Sorry! Sorry!" She leaned over and began to awkwardly shift him around so that his upper and lower body weren't twisted apart. The gaping wound gaped a little less once she had him repositioned. The blood that had been gushing out in torrents had already slowed to a trickle, and she knew that he would start healing with amazing speed once his body finally figured out exactly what had happened to it this time around. Then a shadow fell across them both, and they looked up to see Ms. Thurman, one of the school's combat instructors standing over them.

"Need to work on that situational awareness, Mr. Harris," she said, her oddly-marked face grim and unforgiving. "Never give a known enemy a free shot at your back like that, or one day you won't live long enough to regret it." A gesture brought a medical technician hurrying over, and she walked away without another word. Xander closed his eyes, waiting for the regeneration to begin, and Willow put her hand on his forehead. As she gathered her concentration to attempt a healing spell, she stared after the Buffy-led faction through red-rimmed eyes.

"Don't worry, Xander. Everybody gets what they deserve, sooner or later." He gave a short bark of surprised laughter, then winced in renewed pain.

"So, you're saying that maybe Buffy'll accidentally get lobotomized, turn into a normal, affectionate, dim-witted blonde, and become my adoring love slave?"

Willow looked down at him in surprise, then smiled broadly.

"Actually, yes." She looked at the tiny, receding figures of Faith and Buffy, and her smile turned evil. "Yes. I think that's _exactly_ what I'm saying."

* * * * *

.  
9 Minutes and 39 Seconds Ago:

Willow looked around carefully, surveying the space where she would perform the ritual. The lights were dim, as befitted the hushed hour just after midnight. The chamber was cool, the blue waters of the Mansion's indoor pool were as smooth and perfect as glass. The large chamber occupied the basement of the rambling building's western wing, which had only partially been renovated when the mansion was converted to a school. No one was likely to be anywhere nearby, especially since most everyone would be asleep now anyway. All of which meant she should have all the peace and quiet needed to perform some powerful magic.

"Except everybody else looks at me like I'm a crazy person when I use that word," the girl grumbled to herself, the soft words echoing weirdly from both the water and the white tile that covered the floor and walls. "They'd say 'No, not magic, Ms. Rosenberg, _telepathy_. It's another facet of your remarkable talent, Ms. Rosenberg, don't get muddled up in superstition Ms. Rosenberg." Willow snorted, amused despite herself at her fairly accurate imitation of Tessa. According to her, Willow had a strange, generalized sort of psionic talent, one that altered itself in response to her needs of the moment.

"Sort of like a computer that's able to run different programs, instead of an appliance that's only able to do one specific thing," she mused to herself. Then she shook her head. "Whatever, using spells and rituals to focus my concentration is what works for me, and that's what I'm here to do. So let's get magicking!"

She set the candles out in the proper order, aligned with her best guess at the cardinal directions of North, South, East and West. Moving carefully, she drew the outline of the magical circle in salt, going clockwise from candle to candle. When it was time to sketch in the mystical symbols needed for this particular sort of spell, she paused to dig two of her reference books out of her bag.

"Umm...." She looked from book to book, squinting in the dim light, and finally heaved an unhappy sigh. The books disagreed on which symbols were needed; in fact, they pretty much exactly contradicted each other. Since they'd both occupied the same shelf at the used bookstore in town, she didn't know which one she should believe... so she decided to play it safe. Using a black marker, she drew in first one ring of symbols, and then the second set too, just inside of those. Straightening, she turned in place, surveyed her work, and nodded happily.

"Looks pretty darn Wiccan to me!"

She pulled the last of the required objects from the bag. A small metal bowl, in which she piled little blocks of incense, and two little folded squares of cloth. A moment's concentration and a brief spate of broken latin produced small flames atop each of the candles, and started the incense smoldering. With fingers that were only slightly trembling, Willow lifted the first little packet--

--And hesitated, a faint shadow of uncertainty stealing across her features. This sort of spell, this kind of compulsion and control of another being, was strictly against the rules. It was bad, _bad_ karma to force someone like this, against their will. Threefold return, for good or ill was the saying, which meant she could expect some very bad happenings indeed when the payback for this came back around. Willow looked down at the cloth, considered... and then her features hardened.

"Not going to back out, not this witchy girl. Okay, yes, this _is_ bad, but she's badder--er, more worser... ack! She's a horrible, horrible person, and she has this coming to her!" The echoes bounced back, louder than she'd intended, and she froze until silence returned. Looking anxiously at the door that led to the hallway that led (eventually) to the girl's dorms, she took a few deep breaths, then unwrapped the bundle. Inside, there were half a dozen strands of golden hair. She smiled, determination driving away all uncertainty, and moved to take her place inside the circle.

"And the best part is, this gives everybody what they deserve. Xander gets to spend all day with the uber-snooty b. i. t. c. h. following him around like the typical, bleach-blonde, air-headed cheerleader that she is. Buffy gets the massive humiliation of waking up and finding out she spent a whole day making a total fool of herself with the guy who's supposed to be beneath her. I get... well, _hopefully_ I get a Xander who's gotten the Buffy obsession out of his system. Because I can't believe that being around her all day long won't show him just how awful she is on the inside, once he gets past the skin-deep stuff. And best of all, Faith gets totally crushed when she finds her untouchable Buffy so busy making out with Xander that she doesn't even notice Miss walking, talking, supercleavage." She giggled softly, entranced by the mental image. "The baddest of the bad girls might even break down and cry, right there in front of everybody. I need to make sure I have a camera ready."

Checking her Sesame Street wristwatch, she reluctantly put those happy thoughts aside and sank into a half-lotus within her circle, legs pulled up underneath her. Concentrating on what she required, she began to chant the words of the spell, as outlined in the books. Within moments, she felt the magic stir within her (or maybe she felt the neural pathways in a certain area of her brain realigning themselves into the configuration that manifested a telepathic ability; whatever). Breathing in the scent of the incense, she held the blonde hairs in her hand and sent the call outwards.

_Come forth, you mean, pretentious bimbo. Come to me, you arrogant, conceited, condescending... person. This is me overriding the thinking part of your brain, if one of those actually exists somewhere underneath all that blonde hair. This is me filling your obnoxiously pretty head with lots and lots of lusty thoughts, thoughts that make you want to come here. So hurry up! You're consumed with the need to get busy, or be shagged, or, um... otherwise be sexed up... somehow or other._

She scowled, trying to stay focused even as she wished she'd had a script for that part like she did for the Latin. Keeping the blonde hairs clenched tight in one fist, she glanced down to make sure the other packet, with a little of Xander's hair, was close at hand. That was for the second part of the spell, but she'd need to wait until her victim was here, in front of her, for that part. In the meanwhile.....

_Come, you... you.... Ah ha! Come, you tawdry strumpet! The new object of your raging and all-encompassing lust and hunger and desire and all that other good stuff is just waiting to meet you!_

* * * * *

.  
4 Hours and 13 minutes ago:

The whispered spell sent tiny, invisible feelers of magical energy (or of telekinetic force) into the lock. A moment later there was a soft click, and the door moved inward at her touch. Taking another quick look back at the door across the hall, she could plainly hear the loud music, and equally-loud laugher from inside--Faith and Buffy were spending the evening with some of their friends. Slipping inside the room, Willow pushed the door closed behind her.

The huge room woke a familiar jab of bitter envy; compared to _her_ dorm, this was practically a luxury suite. Suppressing the angry comments that tried to force their way past her tightly-closed lips, she moved around the room. There were clothes, and clothes, and more clothes; most of them in Buffy's size, and neatly folded or hanging, but some were of the bright, tight, and sexy style that was all Faith. A number of weapons were lying about; swords and knives and even a round metal shield. Some of the items were made of rubber and plastic, and meant to be used in training or sparring matches. Others were the real thing, and looked suitably dangerous. Tiptoeing carefully around a large pile of comic books, and several dumbbells loaded with heavy weights, she searched the area around the dresser and vanity mirror.

There was a row of shoes there, all of them expensive-looking heels in a positively dainty size. Near the bathroom door were two pairs of leather boots, and some battered sneakers. Both computers had been left on, their large monitors glowing. One screensaver showed an image of a bikini-clad Anna Kournikova--the former tennis star (and current centerfold model) all long blonde hair and golden skin, with a beautiful, spoiled, and obviously self-satisfied face.

"Faith has her type all figured out, doesn't she?" Willow whispered to herself with a little scowl. "And she gets to sleep in the same room as one of her fantasy girls; _that_ must make for a swell time." The other screen showed... a graceful-looking figure skater. Willow blinked, leaned forward, and blinked again. The screen changed, showing another image of skaters, this time a man and a woman together, smiling up at a crowd. Not sure what to make of that, the girl moved on.

There were fashion magazines on the dresser, a half-empty pack of cigarettes, lighter and ashtray tucked into a nook in the bookshelf, two boxes of expensive-looking chocolates lying open and nearly empty... and there, a hairbrush. With a feeling of exultation, Willow grabbed it. Apparently the two girls shared it, because there were several strands of purple mixed in with the gold-blonde, but that presented no problem. She quickly teased the blonde strands free, wrapped them in a bit of cloth she'd brought along for the purpose, and tucked it into her pocket.

Feeling extremely competent and brave now that her mission had been successfully accomplished, she went to the door, peeked outside, and nodded to herself. Buffy would have to come back and go to sleep within the next hour or two, since there were classes in the morning. Willow would wait an hour or so past that, to give the girl time to fall deeply asleep, and then she would cast the spell.

_Xander is going to be so surprised when Buffy the Love Slave shows up at his door. And Buffy is going to be even more surprised when her brain switches back on a few hours later, and she finds out she's his new girlfriend! She'll look like a total hypocrite, especially after she's made such a big deal of how he's not even allowed to look at her. Well, he's going to get to do a_ lot_ more than that to you tonight, your highness!_

The evil smile was back, and it stayed in place as she closed the door behind her, relocked it, and padded off down the hall.

* * * * *

3 Minutes and 27 Seconds Ago:

After she cast the spell, Willow waited anxiously. She could feel _something_ happening; that place inside her head that housed her magical talent (or the neural mechanism that powered her mutant ability) was exerting itself steadily. What she wasn't sure of, as minutes passed, was whether that talent was exerting itself _enough_. After all, she'd never done this sort of thing before, so she wasn't sure how much power it would take to make it work--if it worked at all.

"And then there's that strangeness with Buffy," she whispered to herself, eyes never leaving the door through which the girl should enter any second now. "She's supposed to be just a 'Grrrr! Me strong fighter and thug and bully!' type mutant, only I've seen her manage to fight it off sometimes when people use mental powers on her. Nobody's ever _said_ she has some extra-special resistance or something, but I think a few people are pretty sure there _is_ something like that happening." Her brows lowered and her teeth ground together a little at the thought. "Sure, because she doesn't already have enough going for her, with the pretty face and the perfect hair and the curvy body--plus all the friends, all the people lusting after her, and the thing with being the ultimate Ninja-girl piled on top of the rest." She sighed gustily, tried to keep her concentration, looked at her watch, then back to the door.

_I should have timed how long it takes to get from her room to here, so I'd know if it was working or not._ Yet another glance at her watch didn't reassure her. _I don't think it would take this long, would it? Unless... maybe the spell doesn't guide her here? Ack! Maybe she's trying to sleepwalk through a wall or something, trying to go in a straight line from there to here?_

That... was worrisome. And yet, if that was happening, Willow figured she would have heard the sounds of smashing and shouting already. More likely was the possibility that her summons simply wasn't strong enough. What would have been enough for a normal girl's mind wasn't penetrating the (theoretical) defenses of Buffy's mind.

Well, there was a simple enough solution for _that_.

"Use a bigger hammer," she whispered, quoting Xander. A little smile flickered across her face and was gone, replaced by a look of pure resolve. With exquisite care she repeated the whole spell, making extra sure to pronounce all the Latin properly this time. At the same time, she concentrated on redoubling her mental call. When she was finished she nodded to herself; the effect _did_ feel stronger now. After a few seconds, though, she started to doubt herself once more.

So she went through it _again_, trying to turn the summons into a blazing laser of pure thought, burning deep into her target's mind, filling it with an irresistible desire to reach the source of the call. Willow swayed a little when the third repetition was complete; that unique portion of her brain was straining now, working as hard as it possibly could. She nodded grimly.

"There. I don't care _how_ much of an ice queen she is, there's no way she's not feeling _that_!"

Watching the door expectantly, she waited.

* * * * *

5 Hours and 40 minutes ago:

Buffy gently pulled the brush through Faith's long hair, repeating the motion over and over in a steady rhythm. It was nearly dry, finally, and slid through her hands like liquid silk.

"This looks a _lot_ better," she told the other girl. "Those brown roots were really starting to show."

"If you say so," Faith mumbled quietly from her seat before the dresser. "Anything's better than hearing you go on and on about how you wanted to be the one to dye it this time."

Buffy smiled at the top of the girl's head.

"Exactly. Sooner or later, everyone surrenders to my relentless whining and sulking." She stopped for a moment, pursed her lips into a pout, and sighed. "All right; everyone surrenders except for my mother, which is not only an unfortunate coincidence... it also bites on a fairly epic scale. Hence my presence here, at mutant high."

"Mm hm."

The blonde moved around to Faith's left side, pulled the brush through the hair there, then paused to survey the results.

"You know, this purple is really growing on me. At first I was like 'My god, what's happened to this girl's head? An accident with the vats of day-glo at a paint factory? Chance exposure to some radioactive lightsticks at a rave?'". She walked around to the other side, nudging Faith to lean her head so that she could get clear access with the brush. "But now? It's just you, you know? It's sort of fun, and funky, and edgy... with that whole sleek and sexy, tough-girl predator thing thrown in for a million bonus points."

"Mm hmm."

Buffy set the brush down, and gently ran her fingers through that fall of smooth softness; not for any cosmetic reason, now, but just for the pleasure of the sensation.

"Of course it wasn't perfect; I think my own personal touch makes it look even better than it did before. And you know you've been thinking about it ever since you looked through my suitcases that first day."

"Mmmmm...."

The blonde paused, considered the girl sitting there in front of her, and bent down a little to stare into the mirror before them. Faith had been quietly disdainful of the whole process, claiming that there was a good week or two before the root situation would be an actual problem. She'd wanted to go get in a session in the school's gym instead, or a quick five-mile run, or... well, basically anything else at all. Buffy had insisted, though, and like she'd just said, (almost) nobody had enough willpower to keep telling her 'no' for long.

And for the last fifteen minutes, while the smaller girl had been busy with the brushing, Faith had made a show of reading comic books to relieve the immense boredom she suffered during the process. Only now.... Buffy smiled delightedly as she looked into Faith's reflected face and found the other girl's eyes closed. Gently resuming her finger combing of the violet mane, she listened closely.

"Mmmmmmmmm...."

It was a sub vocalization, so quiet it was hardly a sound at all. Buffy still heard it, and made a pleased little sound of her own.

_Okay, I think she's actually purring! Miss Total Badass, and she's putty in my hands--that is of the good in many, many ways._

A lot had happened in the ten days since she'd first stepped foot on the school grounds. And one of the most... no, _the_ most important thing that had happened, by far, was the relationship that had formed between the two of them. It had taken her by surprise; it had taken her way, _way_ by surprise... and yet it had happened. Not just the friendship thing, either, though that was unlikely enough. No, the big deal was the romance part. Granted, it was an... understated romance. Sort of _un_stated, actually; with everything totally subtextual, and neither of them putting it into words.

_Except we don't have to, not at this point. The subtext is looming awfully large by now; one might even say there is a Godzilla-sized subtext monster who is gleefully riverdancing atop the poor, defenseless text._

So, the only question now was what to do about it? She knew it was entirely up to her to make the first move. Faith was as open and free about her sexuality as it was possible for someone to be, but she also knew that Buffy was more reserved than that. It wasn't like she was homophobic, not at all. It was simply that she'd never considered the possibility that she would be... interested... in another girl.

_Okay, sure, I've kissed a girl once before... okay, twice_. She considered the matter, then grudgingly amended the thought. _All right,_ three _times, but I was halfway out of my mind that night because of all the champagne I'd been drinking. It was in no way my fault that dad had to stay at the office all night, which meant that Carly and Cissy felt free to look all through the apartment and ended up finding that bottle. It was supposed to be a girl's night/sleepover kind of thing, and ended up being sort of... educational._

She blinked, breaking out of her reverie, and looked down to where her fingers were still moving caressingly through Faith's hair.

_I like her. A lot. Maybe even enough to experiment a little?_ She frowned in irritation and shook her head. _Come on, Buffy, be honest with yourself. There's no 'maybe' about it, not now. There's only 'when' and 'how'. Which, granted, are huge and scary questions all on their own._

Faith sighed, and moaned again; quite audibly this time. Buffy watched the girl's legs move as she squirmed uncomfortably, then tried to hide the movement by sitting up straighter in the chair as she opened her eyes.

"So, we all done?" she asked. Her gaze found her reflection, and her eyes widened a little. "That... is more than covering up some brown roots, B."

Buffy smiled at her, running her fingers through the hair in question once more before stepping back.

"And it looks completely amazing on you. Don't even try to pretend you don't love it."

Faith grinned at her, and stood up with that easy grace of hers--which did nothing to hide her flushed face, her quickened breathing, or the way it was suddenly obvious that she was not wearing a bra beneath her blouse.

"C'mon, sexy-haired girl," Buffy told her. "Mira and Mari want us to come across the hall and watch American Idol with them. And remember, they promised you all the popcorn you can eat."

"Ha! Those two have no fucking _idea_ how much that's gonna cost them! I can _live_ on popcorn." She strode over to her bed and began sorting through the clothes heaped on the floor beside it. "Actually, I _did_ live on popcorn, for a few weeks one time. See, I was screwing this guy who worked at the movie concession stand, and he could get these huge plastic bags of--"

Buffy tuned it out, too busy with her own thoughts to follow yet another tale of Faith's sex life.

_Thing is, that's a big deal. I mean,_ I _have a sex drive, absolutely. I've been a non-virgin for a few months now, and sex is an incredibly nifty thing. Faith, though, doesn't just have a sex drive--she has a Car Show. She has the entire New-Car Expo, with a few dozen Monster Trucks thrown in for kicks. She's tried to be sneaky, but I know she sneaks out most nights to find somebody to scratch that itch for her. I'm pretty sure she manages it during the day sometimes too, even if I can't figure out where she's going or who she's meeting. So, yes, a little intimidating. If me playing with her hair almost made her orgasm just now--and it did--then I'm going to have my work cut out for me, trying to keep up with her. _

She watched as Faith peeled off her tee shirt, as free of body modesty as a cat, and slipped into a bra. The cranberry blouse went over it, falling several inches short of reaching the waistband of her skintight, low-rise jeans, which left a tantalizing expanse of flat stomach and trim waist on display.

_On the other hand, I think it's going to be a lot of fun_ trying!

* * * * *

Now:

The room felt crowded, somehow, the air tingling like it did right before a thunderstorm. Willow stood within her magic circle, the strands of blonde hair clutched in one fist, with every single bit of mental energy she possessed striving to draw Buffy to her. By all accounts the petite girl had a surprising amount of self-control when it came to sexual-type temptations, so it was probably a good thing that Willow was over-charging the spell as much as she could. With this much power concentrated on the primal, lusty portions of the blonde's brain, there was no way she would be able to resist the summons.

Yep, any second now, and Buffy Summers would come shuffling through that door in a helpless, zombie-like trance, only to find a waiting Willow. A second spell to bind the girl's every thought to Xander, and her revenge would be well on it's way to fruition. She realized now that she'd been foolish to worry about the threefold rule; dark magic or no, this was for the greater good, really, almost a public service. Life would be easier for everyone with Buffy humbled and Faith's unbreakable loyalty to the blonde forever tarnished.

All that remained was for the girl to actually arrive, and then--

_Boooommmm!_

Willow shrieked, jumped, and nearly fell out of her circle when the door she'd been watching suddenly slammed open so hard that broken tile clattered to the floor from where it had swung through a half-circle and struck the wall. The figure on the other side was visible only in silhouette for a long moment, which gave the girl time enough to find her voice.

"A--All right, um, Buffy, this is your mistress speaking. Come forward, and I will bind you to your new master." She glanced down at the packet of Xander's hair, and her lips twisted. "You don't deserve him, and I don't want you near him, but if it gets him over you then it'll all... be... worth...?"

When the girl in the doorway stepped forward, Willow's heart seemed to trip over itself, missing a beat, then hammering hard and fast. It wasn't Buffy, walking into the dim blue light of the pool room.

It was Faith.

"Faith!" Willow said, her voice emerging in a strangled squeak. "Hey! What a coincidence, you being here! I, uh, wasn't doing anything sneaky or wrong, in here, late at night... I kinda had this urge to swim, y'know?"

The girl wasn't answering. She wasn't doing anything except walking closer, crossing along the far side of the large pool, then turning to walk along the long side, directly towards Willow. The skinny girl couldn't help noticing that Faith wasn't dressed for a late night stroll; all she was wearing was a babydoll nightgown in purple lace and satin that _had_ to be a gift from Buffy. Also, as she came closer, Willow saw that although her eyes were strangely glassy, they weren't at all vacant. Instead, they were filled with... hunger. And finally, when she passed directly under one of the dim lights mounted in the ceiling, her hair was clearly visible. Her long, purple hair... with brand-new, golden-blonde streaks which set the violet color of the rest off perfectly.

"Oh.... _Shit!_" Willow threw the blonde hairs she held away with a convulsive motion. The blonde hairs which she had obtained from a brush that also held a few purple hairs. "You guys didn't share that brush? It was all you?" Willow's voice was shaking, and thin with barely-suppressed terror to boot. "Uh, okay, I can fix this, just give me one second here--!" She fumbled through the tools at her feet, looking for, well, she wasn't quite sure. Switching the girl's focus to Xander, as she'd planned, wasn't something she wanted to even consider. On the other hand, it would buy her enough time to reverse what she'd done; hopefully before any real damage was done. She nodded frantically, lifting the hairs she'd obtained from the boy.

"All right, the Latin for this is.... Ah, the Latin is...."

Faith wasn't waiting for her to remember the Latin; Faith was coming for her, and the look in the tall girl's eyes was turning Willow's insides to water.

_Because I was trying to break through _Buffy's _willpower, and_ Buffy's _resistance to mental powers--Faith doesn't_ have _any resistance to mental stuff, and she_ sure _doesn't have any inhibitions where sex is involved!_

"Faith, stop! Please stop! Give me just one second, and I can--aaahhh!"

She had to jump back, because the other girl was right _there_! Faith was in front of her, and she was moving forward even as Willow was stumbling backwards and trying not to trip over her books and incense bowl and bag of supplies. Willow tried to calm her mind, tried to call up some telekinesis, to shove the girl into the pool--and couldn't. She was no good under pressure, and the way Faith was looking at her, and walking faster--!

Willow turned and ran as hard as she could run. She rounded the corner of the pool, sprinted down the short side at this end of the room, and then she had to make a decision. The fourth side of the pool came right up against the wall; there wasn't any floor here for her to run to the door that led out. She could jump in the water and try to swim towards the exit, or she could go through a door right next to her that led only to a locker room and sauna. With the sound of Faith's bare feet echoing off the tiles right _behind_ her she chose the door. A leap carried her through, and she slammed it shut with all her might. Fumbling at the handle she tried to find a lock, or latch, or anything at all to hold it shut--and a searingly bright blade of pure energy pushed through the wood like it was nothing.

With another shriek Willow backpedaled frantically, tripped backwards over a bench, and then turned and scrabbled away on all fours. Behind her she heard the door being sliced into pieces; she had only seconds before Faith would be inside. Reaching the next room as she managed to get herself back up on her feet, Willow looked around desperately. There was the thick, heavy door of the Sauna itself; obviously it wouldn't do more than slow Faith down. And there, in the corner, so inconspicuous that she nearly overlooked it in her panic, was a smaller panel set low in the wall.

She took a second to throw the Sauna door shut, then clawed frantically at the panel. It fell inwards, and she crawled quickly into the space beyond. Twisting around she pushed it closed behind her, just as she saw Faith step into the room, her Psi-Knife blazing.

Willow shrank back, holding her breath, and waited.

_She's going to find me, I know it! She'll kick this down and drag me out there and rape me before she carves me up! Or she'll carve me up_ while_ she rapes me! Oh, gods, she'll probably just rape me over and over until I'm dead, since I sent that massive lust overload into her already lust-overloaded brain!_

The sound of the telekinetic blade carving through wood made her flinch, but it wasn't the panel in front of her that was being attacked.

_She thinks I'm in the Sauna! I can still get away!_

Blinking furiously, trying to see in the total darkness of the low, musty passage, Willow started crawling. Her searching fingers found metal pipes, ancient wires, and a seemingly endless number of clinging cobwebs. After what seemed like twenty or thirty feet she came to a place where the crawlway split, going straight on or right. Pausing, she tried to call up a mental map of where exactly she was in relation to the building overhead... and then her decision was made for her. A crashing sound came from behind her, and a gleam of purple light spilled into the darkness around her. With a frantic lunge, she scrambled into the right-hand passage. Immediately there came a left turn, a right turn, then another intersection, this one offering three choices. Without pausing she chose the one of the left.

There were sounds from far behind her, almost lost in the rapid pounding of her heart and the pained breaths that came out as choking sobs.

_I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry! I know it was wrong, I promise to neverneverEVER do it again, just please help me! _

Small, sharp things, invisible in the darkness, were cutting her hands and knees as she crawled, and there was so much dust in the air that her lungs felt like they were stuffed with dryer lint. Another long series of twists and turns made her despair of ever finding her way out of the passage... and then she saw it: A gleam of light up ahead, faint, and pale, and best of all not any shade of purple. With a whimper of fear turning to relief, she crawled towards it.

_Thank you thank you, oh goddess thank you--!_

The sound of cracking, splintering wood came just as the floor beneath her gave way, and she fell into utter darkness.

* * * * *

Seven Hours and 57 Minutes From Now:

"Wake up, sleepyhead! You're going to be late for Civics class unless you start getting ready right now!"

Buffy kept going with her own preparations for another full minute before she saw that Faith still hadn't stirred. Grumbling under her breath, she crossed the room and prodded the shapeless lump there.

"Hey! Come on, rise and shine!" Finally the form beneath the covers showed signs of life, and the girl pulled the blanket down to reveal a huge yawn. "Nice," Buffy observed wryly, turning back to the serious business of choosing her shoes for the day.

"What time is it?" Faith asked sleepily, struggling to pull herself upright while squinting at the light streaming in through the open curtains. Seeing the answer for herself on the clock by the bed she cursed, yawned, then cursed again. The blonde smiled at the predictable routine, sat down, and started putting on the shoes she'd selected.

"Regretting that late night now, aren't you?"

Faith stumbled to the bathroom, closed the door, and called her answer back into the room.

"Hey, you were there too, so don't get all preachy at me."

Buffy stood up, frowned, and turned her head towards the door.

"Huh? I'm not talking about watching 'Idol', I mean later."

Silence stretched out for several seconds, then:

"_What_? I came back with you, went to sleep, and woke up just now. So what the hell are you talkin' about?" The toilet flushed, and the door opened to reveal a very puzzled face. Buffy's matched it, though in her case there was also a considerable degree of certainty.

"Actually, no, you didn't. Yes, you went to bed, only later on I got up and went downstairs to raid the kitchen. You were here when I left, gone when I came back. I figured you went... out...for something, so I went back to sleep."

Faith stared at her, then glanced down at her dirty, rumpled nightgown. A look in the mirror showed her hair to be a tangled mess.

"Huh. Well... I guess I must have... gone out for a smoke or something."

Buffy gave the smudged, dusty girl the maximum-strength version of her skeptically-raised eyebrow.

"'And did this smoke break happen to take place in a coal mine?"

Faith shrugged indifferently.

"Parts of this place are still closed off, and there's a hundred years of dust and crap in those halls. I must have taken a wrong turn or something." An unhappy tug at her dirty nightgown failed to provide any enlightenment. "I don't remember anything else, so... yeah, that must have been it." Then she stopped, looked down at her bare feet, and frowned thoughtfully.

"There _was_ a weird dream, though...."

Buffy watched her, intrigued despite herself. Faith wasn't the sort of person to talk about dreams--not unless they were the pornographic kind.

"Weird how?" she prompted.

"Well.... It was me, on a beach or by a river or something like that; definitely by the water. And I was looking for someone; it was the most important thing in the world to find them... and when I finally got there, and saw them...." She trailed off, looking uncomfortable. Buffy moved to stand beside her, and touched her arm gently.

"Who was it?"

Faith looked up, met Buffy's eyes, and gave her a tiny, uncertain little smile.

"It was you."

"Ah." She tried to find something meaningful to add to that, but it was difficult. It was especially difficult when she realized that they were now standing very close together, with her wondering if_ this_ should be the 'when', when she spoke up and admitted what she wanted.... And Faith was right there, with that vulnerability that was usually hidden deep inside her poised to spill right out in the open, and completely sweep Buffy away.

"Uh huh," Faith said, very softly. "And I tried to go to you, only you ran away, and then there was one of those huge maze things, the kind made out of big shrubberies or whatever. I knew you were in there, and I went in, and got lost, and was basically going crazy 'cause I couldn't find you."

Buffy searched those dark eyes, looking for some hint that this was a joke, and found only earnestness. And a faintly desperate sort of hope.

"It was really that important? That you found me, I mean?"

Faith nodded.

"Yeah, it really was. More than anything. Only it never happened." She blinked, and looked away, and took a step back. "Oh, wow, look at that clock. Shit. Gotta hurry up or I'll be late for... whatever class you said that was." Her defenses back in place, that vulnerable side of her safely hidden once more, the girl turned away. "Man, I feel grungy as hell; I _gotta_ grab a shower." Snatching up her leather pants and a towel she hurried across the room. "Hey, B; you done in the bathroom?"

"Hm? Oh, sure, go ahead." She watched the girl go inside the bathroom, and start to close the door behind her, and then called out:

"Faith?"

The girl stuck her head back out.

"What?"

Buffy walked to her, slowly and carefully, a little scared and a lot unsure and very much knowing it was the right thing to do.

"You know how in the dream you couldn't find me?"

Faith nodded cautiously.

"Uh huh...."

"Well, I think maybe you shouldn't give up quite yet." She stopped by the half-open door, and leaned against the wall, and looked up at the face just inches away. "I think you should keep looking, because that person isn't running away from you. She's trying to figure out a way to reach you. And to... help you find your way out of that maze... assuming we're still stuck in that analogy."

A stunned look and the beginnings of a disbelieving smile came and went, leaving a cautious and guarded expression behind.

"Are you sure? I mean, if it's gonna get weird, and go wrong, and screw up what we've already got, then I don't want to--"

"I'm sure," Buffy told her, all firm and gentle at the same time. "We're most of the way there already, and I--" She smiled, and nodded, more to herself than the other girl. "I want it; all of it. Everything." The smile turned into a mischievous grin. "This should _not_ be a shock; you already know how greedy I am."

Faith grinned back at her.

"You are one spoiled little brat; yeah, I'm aware."

"Pretty, though, right?."

"Oh, absolutely; you're the prettiest spoiled brat I've ever seen."

Buffy nodded happily, eyes sparkling.

"Good answer. Now hurry up and get clean, we've got school stuff to do now. The other stuff--" She lowered her chin and did her best 'seductive stare through eyelashes' thing, and almost laughed when Faith's fingers went white from her grip on the edge of the door. "The other stuff we can try later. Not much later, though."

A long, gusty sigh from Faith, and then the bathroom door slammed shut.

"I _hope_ not," came the muffled voice from the other side. "Cold shower, definitely. Very, very cold shower...."

Buffy regarded the door with satisfaction.

_I'm glad we finally got that out in the open. Because if you're going to have lusty dreams about chasing someone, then every one of them had better be about Me._

Wandering over to the vanity, she picked up the hairbrush and pulled in through her blonde locks a few times.

_Those gold streaks I put in with the purple aren't just for show, you know. Those are a sign to everybody else here that I've claimed you, that you're_ mine._ I know I might have to share you, but I come first, always. And if I find anybody trying to mess with that arrangement, they will be very, very sorry._

* * * * *

And elsewhere, at that same moment:

"Willow? Hey, you in there?"

She looked up from where she was huddled on her bed, wrapped in blankets, and didn't answer. So of course Xander opened the door anyway.

"There you are. So, how about it?"

She stared at him, bleary-eyed and unhappy.

"How about what?" she asked, her voice a pained whisper.

He didn't seem to notice her discomfort. Moving forward, he dropped down to sit on the side of her bed, which made her wince as her aching body was jarred by the motion.

"You know, the thing. The thing you said you were going to do last night, that would make everyone get what they deserved. _That_ what."

She grimaced, and shook her head slowly.

"Never mind. Not going to happen."

_Or maybe it already happened, _she found herself thinking. _Good or ill, deeds return to you threefold. Maybe that really is true._

The shame she felt, and the sore, strained, aching discomfort radiating from basically every single inch of her body seemed to support that theory. After falling down the shaft, she'd lain there, stunned, for what seemed a scary-long time. When she finally mustered the concentration to summon a small light she'd found herself in a long-abandoned wine-cellar, complete with dusty, broken bottles and squeaking, scurrying rats.

It had taken forever for her to find her way back to the upper levels of the old mansion. Especially when she heard Faith's footsteps in every tiny noise, and saw those blazing purple knives in every reflected glint of her own light. Even now she was shaking from the aftereffects of that prolonged terror.

"Threefold return, and what I tried was even worse than what _they_ do," she whispered to herself.

"Say what?" Xander asked, puzzled.

Willow didn't bother explaining.

"Please, leave me alone, okay, Xander? I'm not feeling very well."

The young man stood, obviously at a loss to understand this turn of events.

"Oh, well, okay then. I'll just wander off and do whatever. Out there. Where the crazy women prowl, looking for prey." When she didn't respond he gave her another look, then nodded. "All right, Wil. Rest up, feel better. I'll see you later."

"Later," she said, watching the door close behind him.

That left her alone again with her thoughts, and with the memories of the previous night.

Neither made for pleasant company.

* * * * *


	4. Prejudiced, but in a nice way!

**'Prejudiced... but in a *nice* way!'**

Author's note: Remember, this is actually Chapter Three. The stuff where Willow casts the spell happens over a week later. When I finish filling in this back section I'll rearrange the chapters, but for now I'll leave everything as is.

This is also me trying to write somewhat shorter, but far more frequent chapters. Hopefully my overall output will improve (because we can all agree that it's pretty dismal right now). Another chapter of this will follow in just a couple of days.

Also, I'm way behind on replying to feedback. Sorry about that, and please don't think I'm ignoring you. Believe me, I read everything you guys post. I read it an embarassingly large number of times. ^_^  
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"You cheated."

"Did not."

"Yes, you did. You so cheated."

"Didn't. _Couldn't_, even if I wanted to; my stuff doesn't work like that. All I can do is hit things, shove things, and smack things around. I can't grab hold of a piece of lint, much less make a damn quarter come up heads."

"...You are an evil, scheming, cheat-tastic cheater... who cheats."

"B, are you even _listening_ to what I'm saying?"

* * * * *

The hall that ran the length of the third floor was nice and wide, which was a good thing since girls were still arriving. Down at the far end, Buffy spotted one with long blonde hair going from room to room, hugging her suitcase to her chest like a child clutching a stuffed animal. Even among the sometimes odd-looking teenagers she was hard to miss, since a glowing, golden aura surrounded her entire body.

"Hi, I'm looking for a room? Do you have--Oh. Okay then, thanks anyway! Um, hello, I don't have a roommate or a room, yet, do you think maybe.... No? All right, uh, thank you. Hey there! I was hoping--"

Even from a distance, Buffy's hearing caught the desperate cheerfulness in the girl's voice. Watching the repeated refusals and rejections, she couldn't help but wonder why the girl didn't turn off the light show.

_Everybody is freaking a little when they turn around and find her there, glowing right in their faces like that. Not that I blame them; who knows what that is? She might be giving off microwaves, or UV rays, or maybe even sporks... or is it quarks? Vorks? Well,_ some _kind of Star Trekian or X-filesy sort of thing. Even if I didn't already have a roomy, I don't think I'd want_ that_ living in the same room with me. Speaking of which--_

"So, has the guilt over that cruel and heartless cheating incident finished tearing you up inside yet? Because we both know the only way to deal with all that remorse is to give in and swap beds with me. And since it's going to happen sooner or later, we might as well skip to the--Uh, hello?"

Turning around, Buffy realized she was talking to empty air; Faith had moved off in the other direction, towards the larger space where the hall opened up, just past the door to their own room. Resolving to continue the whining, sulking and nagging campaign at the earliest opportunity, she followed after the other girl.

"Oooh," she exclaimed a moment later. "I take it all back. I officially _love_ this place; they have their own shopping mall!"

That was sarcasm of course, though she privately admitted that the view before her was impressive.

She and Faith were standing on a wide balcony that overlooked a vast open space. The atrium was fully as wide as this wing of the building, and reached higher than its three-story height. Immediately below the two of them another platform extended about twenty feet further out into the space. The level where Buffy and Faith stood had several cozy groupings of comfy-looking chairs, about a dozen in all. The level below them had a few more, plus several sofa-type loungers and a few low tables. One level below _that_ was ground level, and the main area of the enclosed space.

Faith, leaning on the railing and surveying the scene, glanced at her and grinned.

"Think they have a food court?"

Buffy joined her at the rail.

"Forget about food; _I'm_ hoping for a Hot Topic."

Because it really _did_ look a little like a shopping mall--or at least the large, open areas that were spaced around the malls with which she was familiar in L.A. There were small pools of water down there, with fountains burbling musically over artsy arrangements of glass and stone. There were sections of greenery featuring lush grass, flowering plants, shrubbery, and even some medium-sized trees. The rest was winding walkways and a scattering of inviting areas that held yet more comfy sitting arrangements, though these were also equipped with what looked like high-tech video screens, and possibly computer keyboards.

Even though there didn't actually seem to be a McDonald's or trendy clothing store down there, it still seemed awfully swank for a mere boarding school.

Leaning against the railing, she looked out into the expansive floor area of the Atrium. There were a few more female students out there, plus some serious-looking adults who were almost certainly staff. And, unexpectedly, there were also--

"Ooooh, boys!" she said, happily ogling the unsuspecting future victims of her feminine wiles. "And not your run of the mill boys, either; these must all have superpowers!"

Momentarily sidetracked, Buffy scanned the ones she could see from her vantage. Thanks to her augmented vision she was able to examine them quite closely, even from a hundred feet away. Several looked like any other high school male, some of them cute, others not so much. A few, however, displayed some visible strangeness.

One was equipped with long, whip-like tentacles, several of them attached to each forearm. When not in use they coiled up around his arm like heavy bracelets, but they could snake out to eight or ten feet long--with respectable speed.

Another had the form of a humanoid rat, all gray fur, beady eyes, and icky, naked tail. He also had dangerous-looking claws, and huge, nasty incisors.

And, finally, there was the metal man. He was huge; tall and bulky both, like an overdeveloped bodybuilder made out of dull iron. When he walked his feet clanked heavily, and he moved like he expected everyone else to get out of his way... which they did.

"Some of those guys are wicked ugly," Faith noted, her merely human vision still sufficient to catch most of what Buffy had seen. "And you gotta figure that some of 'em have monster-movie stuff going on underneath their clothes, too." She glanced sidelong at the little blonde. "Like, you know, extra mouths and stuff, with really sharp teeth. Or just holes everywhere that ooze slime all the time. Maybe there's tumors shaped like big spiders, that are part of 'em but kinda alive, too, that wave their legs around and try to bite any girl who gets too--"

"Stop!" Buffy said, a little too loudly. Glaring at Faith, she tried not to shudder too visibly, and failed. "Just stop, okay? I get it. And don't mention spiders anymore, either, please. I can't stand bugs; they're almost as creepy as hospitals."

The taller girl nodded, her expression that of someone taking careful mental notes.

"Got it. Hates bugs, hates hospitals." She shifted her feet a little, and crossed her arms on the railing. They were standing so close that the slight repositioning left her upper arm lightly touching Buffy's shoulder; a random happenstance to which the blonde didn't pay any attention.

"So I guess hospitals with bugs are right out, huh?" Faith asked a moment later. Buffy nodded absently as she surveyed the scene below.

"Absolutely. If the choice is me dying from whatever or going to one of those, then just let me die."

She looked again at the visibly deformed students.

_Ugh. None of _those _three are going to be on my list of potential boyfriends, no way. I do see some good-looking ones too, though, so there's definitely hope. I'll have to see if any of them are nice, make sure there aren't any of Faith's hidden surprises involved with them, and then pick out a couple._

It was her policy to always have two boyfriends; that way the competition for her affection and attention kept them busy trying to outdo one another finding new ways to make her happy. A single boyfriend, she'd found, was all too likely to start feeling secure, or even indispensable, and then grow lax about attending to her needs.

_And if there's one thing a boy_ never _is, it's indispensable._

She smiled happily, wondering just how interesting things might become when superpowers were added to the equation. Given the lengths to which a normal suitor would go, someone with mutant abilities might do some truly spectacular things to earn her favor.

_Probably lots of showing off, to show me how cool their powers are,_ she mused. _And if it comes to them fighting over me, then it'll be a lot more interesting than a plain ol' fistfight. I'll have to be careful not to let things get out of hand, or it might even get a little... bloody?_ Pausing to consider the implications of that, she had to admit that it was possible, even likely, that it had already happened.

_Faith. That thing with her 'protecting' me from Xander. I doubt she really thought he would be able to hurt me. No, that little show she put on was exactly the kind of thing a boy with powers would do to impress a girl. She was already making her first move, like what, less than two minutes after she met me? And just now, the way she intentionally grossed me out with all the ways even a good-looking boy might be all deformed and mutated once the clothes come off. She's trying to scare me away from the competition!_

It was disturbing, yet also extremely flattering at the same time. Granted, she wasn't ever going to go there with Faith (or any other woman, for that matter). Still, it might be fun to let things play out for awhile, to see what the girl would do next.

She grinned suddenly, shifting just enough to feel the warmth and pressure from where Faith's arm had 'accidentally' ended up touching her shoulder.

_Darn. Now I wish I already had some schoolbooks to drop, so that she could be all boyfriendly and pick them up, then offer to carry them to class for me._

Buffy forced the grin away as she stole a peek up at the taller girl's face, though it kept tugging at the corners of her mouth.

_I can't wait until future boyfriends #1 and #2 find out that it's not just the two of them fighting over me, there's also _girl_friend #1 to worry about! _Then she stopped, and frowned worriedly. _Or... maybe not. No, come to think of it, that would be a bad idea. I don't want to seem too far out there, at least while I'm trying to gather up my own crowd. Later, maybe, I could get away with it, just not at the beginning._

Faith chose that moment to look over at her, and Buffy was again struck by the girl's beauty.

_I'm not sure how she manages that; her nose is kinda odd looking... and her eyes have a funny slant, if you look close. _Buffy knew herself to be extremely pretty, even beautiful, though in a very conventional way. Faith shouldn't have been more than semi-attractive, given how the component parts of her face were made. And yet, when viewed as a whole....

_She's not just pretty, she's_ hot. _Seriously, the girl is practically made from little building blocks of pure sex. Gah!_

Buffy gave a sort of mental shake, more than a little surprised by how far down that path her thoughts had traveled without her really noticing. This was definitely not the time for pornographic daydreams; there were things that needed doing today, now.

As for Faith, she had looked away after a few seconds, and noticed a mostly-empty can of cola that someone had left sitting on the arm of a chair. Buffy watched her pick it up and swirl it thoughtfully, then step back to the rail. With a wicked little smile she stared down at the larger sitting area on the next lower level. The blonde followed her gaze, and saw that several girls were standing and talking directly below them. Gauging her target carefully, Faith edged the can out over the rail and began to slowly tip it over, obviously intending to give someone down there an unpleasant surprise. The little blonde sighed, and pre-empted her with a quick jab of her elbow into Faith's ribs.

"Cut it out," she told the other girl, backing up the words with a medium-intensity glare. "We don't want _everyone_ here to hate us, you know." Faith, rubbing gingerly at her side, looked from the students below to Buffy, and sighed audibly as she set the can aside.

"I'm sort of used to everybody hating me, B. It's not that bad, once you get the hang of it."

"Well, if you're going 'hang' with me, then you're going to do things a little differently this time." She looked down, gauging the small group below with a professional eye. "All right, we've still got a while before there's enough of them to really give us a good selection. So we can look around some more, and when we get down there we can pick and choose who we want."

Faith cocked her head slightly, looking at her like she was speaking another language.

"'Pick and choose' who? And what would we 'want' them for, anyway?"

Buffy returned the other girl's puzzled stare, with interest.

"Faith... have you never _been_ to high school?" She got another flash of those white teeth in answer, though the resulting expression might not have been an actual smile.

"Sure. I was there for at _least_ four days in a row, once. I think I even went to class a couple of times that week, before I got suspended for kicking some bitch down the stairs."

Nibbling thoughtfully at her lower lip, Buffy decided she'd rather not know the details.

"Come on, let's get back to exploring. We need to do some meet and greets if I'm going to end up in charge of this place." Faith followed after her, still visibly working at following the Buffy logic.

"In _charge?_ Hey, I know we're all badass and everything, but do you really think the two of us can thrash everybody here?" She raised one hand, and an ominous violet glow began gathering around it. "Not that it doesn't sound like a fun time or anything...."

"No, no; slow down there, hack-and-slash girl," Buffy told her, catching hold of that wrist and pulling it back down as the glow faded. "Even in a place like this that's not how we do it. Just follow my lead, and I'll _show_ you how it works."

* * * * *

Heading back in the other direction, the door to their own room was on the right, with another one directly across the hall. It was closed, though, which prevented Buffy from casually sneaking a look inside. She paused in front of it anyway, and closed her eyes as she _listened_.

"--And I was hoping I could room with you? Sure, okay, but how about if I slept on the floor? There's plenty of room for three in here if everybody's friends, and I promise I'll be reallyreally quiet, you won't even know I'm--"

Buffy ground her teeth together, opened her eyes, and looked down the hall. That same glowing blonde girl was _still_ wandering around pestering people--_loudly_--trying to find a room. With a sigh, she decided to skip that door and move on, only before she could take more than a couple steps--

"What the _hell?_"

Faith was looking down at the floor in front of her feet, a puzzled expression on her face. Buffy followed her gaze, and felt herself begin to frown as well.

There were bits of... something... scattered on the freshly-installed carpeting. They looked like shreds of pink plastic, or possibly clay or putty, and there was a definite trail of them all down the hall. The concentration was highest right in front of the door, though, and Faith bent down to pick up one of the larger pieces.

Seen close up, Buffy could see that it was more substantial than she'd first thought; more chunklike, though she still couldn't tell what it was. There was a sort of plastic-y sheen to it, though the color of it was disturbingly flesh-like.

"Um... did someone put their mannequin through a wood-chipper, or--" Buffy broke off with a sort of choking gasp. The stuff in Faith's hand was _moving_. It was a faint, feeble movement, but it was definitely happening. The pink stuff rippled and flexed like it was trying to break free of where her fingers pinched it. She didn't know how the tall girl could stand to hold the thing as it twitched; obviously Faith had more of an 'ick' tolerance than herself.

After a few seconds of struggle, the bizarre substance seemed to run down and stop. Its movement ceased, and it faded to a nearly white color immediately thereafter. Faith dropped the thing to the floor, wiping her hand on the wall as she looked at Buffy. For her part, the blonde girl was staring at the door.

_Change of plan; I don't think I can afford not to know what's in there. So...._

She stepped forward--after a quick look down to make sure no more of that _stuff_ was lurking about--and knocked.

"Oh! Hello? I mean, come on in?"

The thin, girlish voice made it sound more like a question than a statement. Buffy opened the door anyway, scanning the room quickly before stepping inside.

It was another corner room, and pretty much a copy of their own. There were a few more pieces of furniture in this one; small tables mostly, with some little figurines or dolls displayed on them, but otherwise the same. Buffy looked at the girl who'd invited them inside. She was across the room, removing her things from a suitcase and organizing them in piles on the bed. Her lank, mousy-brown hair looked like it had been deliberately pulled forward to hide her features, though it really wasn't very effective camouflage. Even at first glance there was obviously something wrong with her face; some sort of deformity or heavy scarring that stretched from her nose and chin all the way to her ear.

Buffy steeled herself for an even stronger dose of 'ick', and started forward with a wide smile plastered across her face.

"Hi there! We're from across the hall, and we were basically wondering if you know anything about all this pink gunk on the floor outsi--_Aiiiiieeeeeee!_"

This time she didn't gasp in surprise. This time she screamed at the top of her lungs.

The little figurines and dolls that were perched in various places around the room weren't harmless little collectables at all.

They were _alive_.

Two of them, each about six inches high and wearing black robes, jumped down from the bed and scuttled across the floor towards her. Buffy, her heart pounding inside her chest like it was about to explode, stumbled backwards, colliding with Faith in the doorway. With no quick way out of the room and only a second or two before the little creatures reached her, sheer instinct took over.

Buffy drove one fist through the top of a small, beautifully carved mahogany table, grabbed hold of it by the inside, and yanked it up over her head. The two little doll-people came to a stop in front of her, and she had a bare instant in which to catch details. Other than their size, they both looked completely human, one with dark hair and one with orangish-red. The first one even had a teeny little pair of round-lensed glasses. They stared up at her, eyes wide, and staring, and _aware_. They weren't robots or toys, they really were alive. Buffy's stomach lurched with horrible revulsion, and she brought the table smashing down with all her might.

One of the figures, the dark-haired one, managed to whip out a tiny stick of some kind, aim it upwards, and call out in a high-pitched squeak of a voice:

"_Expectum Patr--_!"

The crash of the table's shattering impact cut off whatever the creature had meant to say. The room shook--possibly the entire _building_ shook. Amazingly the floor held firm, though the carpet beneath that small pile of splintered wreckage was certainly a little worse off than it had been an instant earlier. Buffy, her entire body trembling with adrenaline overload, scrambled to put herself safely behind Faith, her eyes darting as she tried to watch every inch of floor at once.

_That.... That was kind of a shock. Monsters I can deal with; big, scary vampires are fine. Just don't-don't_-don't _make me fight hordes of tiny little things that can climb up my legs and inside my clothes and all over me like bugs!_

Faith half-turned so that she could regard the shorter girl with a delighted little grin.

"So, B, I'm tryin' to follow your lead, like you said, but I'm not sure how this part goes. Am I supposed do that supersonic girlyscream thing and then almost pee myself, or do I almost pee myself and _then_ do the supersonic girlyscream?"

Buffy didn't spare the attention needed to glare at her. Instead she grabbed the tall girl's waist and pushed her a little further forward, the better to serve as a human shield.

"Ha ha, very funny. Now pay attention to the floor, and if anything skitters towards us I want you to stomp it flat! Unless _you_ want to find out what it's like to get kicked down some stairs!"

There were at least six or seven more of the little horrors that she could see; thankfully none of them seemed inclined to seek revenge for their splattered comrades. Instead they scrambled away from her as fast as they could, running to hide behind the girl by the bed. For her part, the girl was looking sadly at the wreckage by Buffy's feet.

"Oh, no. My poor Harry, and poor little Ron." She raised her eyes to meet the blonde girl's, and they were quietly accusing. "Now Hermione is going to be so lonely." On the bed by the suitcase, hiding and nearly invisible underneath some neatly folded underwear, a tiny, bushy-haired figure wept inconsolably.

Buffy didn't know what to make of, well, _any_ of it. She also couldn't make herself stop watching for little people trying to sneak up on her defenseless ankles. Thankfully Faith was there to do the talking for her.

"Hey. Ah, sorry about her squishing your little guys, there. She thought they were...." The purple-haired girl glanced behind her questioningly.

"Mice," Buffy supplied, never taking her eyes off the floor.

"Yeah, mice. With clothes and magic wands and stuff. Because mice are like that sometimes, with the disguises, you know?" She was having trouble not laughing as she said it; Buffy still had her hands on the girl's lower back (why, she wasn't quite sure), and she could feel the little spasms there as Faith fought to hold back her laughter. For her part, the strange girl only sighed heavily, and scratched nervously at one hand.

"Oh. I'm sorry then, I'm sure they didn't mean to scare you. They're just... I mean, they _were_ just curious about new people." She shook her head mournfully. "Those two were always getting in trouble; going where they weren't allowed, breaking school rules, sneaking around at night when they were supposed to be sleeping...."

Buffy, processing that, managed to look up for a moment.

"Sneaking around? At _night_?" She stared at the splintered wreckage of the table as if the little creatures might pull themselves free and run at her again. "Leaving aside the fact that I'm going to have nightmares for weeks because of that sentence, what exactly _are_ these things? And, um, what's wrong with your hand?"

The girl's hand, which she'd been scratching vigorously, was peeling. Not peeling a layer or two of skin, either. This was much thicker than that. In fact, as a horrified Buffy watched, she pulled free a large piece of pink flesh. There wasn't any blood; it was the same strange pink stuff they'd found in the hall. Underneath it, her hand was still there, only now there was a large patch where the underlying veins, muscle, and tendons were clearly visible.

_I... think I am going to vomit. Right here, right now, all over my fantastic shoes. Any second now--no, breathe Buffy, breathe...._

Faith, on the other hand was watching the display with wide-eyed amazement.

"Whoa. It doesn't hurt when you do that?"

The bizarre girl shook her head.

"No, not at all. I'm sorry, I usually don't molt this much. I think it's the stress of being in a new place, and seeing new people." She looked down, tugging at her hair to try and hide her face more completely. "The kids at my old school didn't... like me being around... very much."

The careful breathing thing seemed to be working for Buffy; she was beginning to feel like she _might_ not lose her lunch in the next few seconds. So she started to say something diplomatic and encouraging and utterly untruthful to the girl--because she understand completely how those other kids felt. Then, before the polite lie even made it past her lips, it got even worse. The girl looked up from her hand, her hair fell back from her face a bit, and--

"Oh my god...." Her whisper was louder than she'd intended, and everyone in the room heard it quite clearly. The girl flinched, and turned away again, but not before Buffy had seen the way the flesh had peeled away from one side of her face. Naked muscle was exposed to open air, as well as teeth, tendons, and the bone of her jaw. Inside the gaping hole in her cheek, her tongue and a glimpse of esophagus were visible.

"It grows back," the girl whispered to the far wall. "In a day or so it'll all be grown back. Once I get used to being here, it'll stop coming off so easy, and I'll look almost normal."

Faith still hadn't shown any real reaction, other than morbid fascination.

"Lookin' like that, I guess you're having trouble finding somebody to room with you, huh?"

The girl nodded, daring a quick look back at them before turning away again.

"Yes, so far nobody can stand the sight of me. It's not all bad, though; there were a couple of really mean girls in here earlier. I think they wanted the room for themselves? Only they took one look at me, then turned around and ran out."

Between the walking, talking horror before her, and the tiny, accusing eyes of the little doll-people, Buffy agreed with those girls one hundred percent.

"Faith?" She had to clear her throat before the words would come out properly. "I'm going to wait in the hall for a minute, okay?"

The purple-haired girl nodded, looking torn between amusement and concern.

"Sure, B; go get some air. I'll chill out here with--Hey, what's your name, anyway?"

"Merrie," the girl said, seeming startled that anyone would actually want to know. "Merrie Giddings."

"Okay, Merrie; I'm Faith. So tell me about these action-figure guys running around. Do you like, I don't know, squirt a bunch of the things out every so often like a litter of kittens, or what?"

_That_ got her a shocked look from Merrie.

"No! Ew, that would be gross!" She held up the chunk from her hand. "What I do is take this shed flesh, and shape it into what I want. This is really too small to show you, though, hang on--" And with that she pulled up the sleeve of her blouse, dug her fingers into her forearm, and tore away a larger gobbet of flesh. "See? Once I have some of this--and it has to be fresh--I can take it and--"

That was enough. It was way _more_ than enough, and Buffy hurried out of the room, focusing hard on her breathing once more.

_Not going to throw up, not going to throw up, _not_ going to throw up...._

Safely back in the hall, she leaned her back against the wall and forced the contents of her stomach back down where it belonged. Once she was a little more composed, she looked up, and saw three girls standing out on the balcony, watching her.

"--hear her screaming like that? You'd think she'd seen an axe murderer coming at her or something."

"I _know_! I mean, sure, that freak in there is gross, but come on!"

"Exactly. And Kathy told me that blondie there was some kind of tough girl, too."

"More like 'cream puff' girl, you mean."

Enhanced hearing was sometimes _not_ the most wonderful thing in the world. Especially when--

"Hey there, fellow blonde mutant person! Looking for a room mate? I hope?"

Buffy jumped; she'd damped her hearing down to normal human levels, but that didn't help when someone was practically shouting into her ear.

"Wha?!" Turning around quickly, she found herself face to face with... the glowing girl. Earnest, hopeful eyes of pale blue stared into her own. Buffy took a step back to regain her personal space, then shook her head. "I'm sorry, no, I'm not." The other blonde's expression collapsed into one of mournful despair.

"Oh. Okay." For a moment it looked like she was about to cry, then she straightened her shoulders and raised her chin. "Alrighty, I'll just keep looking then." She started past Buffy, towards the open door behind her.

At which point Buffy grabbed her by the arm and swung her around.

"Wait!"

The other girl almost lost her balance, her long hair swinging into her face. Once her feet were back under her, she looked at Buffy with anxious puzzlement.

"What is it? What did I do wrong?"

"Ah...."

What it _was_, was Buffy realizing that this was someone who was desperate enough to actually share a room with zombie-dollmaker girl.

_If there's two of them together then I might_ never _get the living nightmare and her little minions out of there. And no_ way _am I going to have tiny, evil little Chucky clones wandering around at night, sneaking into our room, climbing into my bed while I'm sleeping--Bleayah!_

Buffy gave a convulsive shudder. Then, fixing her gaze on the other girl, she smiled her warmest and friendliest smile.

"Actually, I heard someone talking a minute ago. They said there's a room open downstairs, with a really nice and tolerant person just looking for someone to share with them."

The blue eyes went huge and round.

"_Seriously?!_" Buffy nodded, and the girl actually jumped up and down several times. "Yay! I mean, really '_Yay!_'. I was starting to think that I'd never find anywhere to stay." Her aura shone brighter, echoing her enthusiasm.

Nodding and shrugging in a modest sort of way, Buffy ruthlessly quashed any feelings of sympathy or guilt she might otherwise have felt.

"No problem. Um, just out of curiosity, what's this glowy stuff coming off you? Any sort of semi-deadly radiation or whatnot that I should be aware of?"

The girl shook her head so hard that her blonde hair flew.

"Oh, no! Not at all! I mean, I can't turn it off or anything, but it's totally and completely harmless, I promise!"

Buffy nodded again, her eyes wary.

"Uh huh. Well, better safe than sorry; I'd look terrible with green skin. That vacant room I was talking about? It's down on the first floor. All the way down at the far end, furthest away from this one."

The girl smiled brilliantly.

"Thank you! Thank you so much!" She dumped her things in the floor long enough to reach out and grab Buffy's hand in both of hers. "I'm Harmony, by the way. Harmony Kendall."

"Buffy," Buffy said, extracting her hand as quickly as possible. "Buffy Summers. Nice to meet you." She made a little shooing motion. "Okay, you'd better hurry or that room will be gone. Actually, it might already be gone, in which case you won't actually _find_ that vacancy... which will in no way be my fault. Because I'm certainly not trying to trick you or anything." That last bit was just to test her initial appraisal of the other blonde. And sure enough, the comment went right over her head.

"Oh, I wouldn't blame you, not at all! You're the only person here who's been even a little bit nice to me so far."

The trusting, guileless look that accompanied that was almost enough to make Buffy regret her actions.

Almost.

"That's me all right; too nice to be believed." The pretty, vacuous face before her still didn't register the underlying meaning of her words, and Buffy sighed. "On the other hand, that spot might still be open, you never know. So, on the remote but almost plausible chance that it is, maybe you should...?"

Harmony's eyes went wide again, this time with panic.

"You're right! I'd better go!" She turned and ran down the hall, her suitcases banging against her legs as she went. "Thanks again, Buffy!" she shouted behind her.

The tiny blonde gave a half-hearted wave.

_I am_ not _an evil person, really I'm not... despite all the evidence to the contrary. Sure, I'm self-centered, but that's not evil. Okay, yes, I can also be egotistical and conceited sometimes; those are also not strictly considered evil. And really, a little narcissism never hurt anyone... except for that guy it's named after, I guess, but that's only a story._

So nope; not evil. What other people call 'manipulative bitchery' is really just me being an entirely wonderful, kind, generous person... and making sure that I get everything I want, that anyone who contradicts me ends up regretting it, and that everyone treats me like the sweet, cute, adorable, gracious and humble person that I am. Or else. 

At the far end of the hall, Harmony stopped long enough to give her a bright smile and one last, happy wave, then she hurried downstairs. Buffy, staring after her, could only sigh softly.

_Okay, I_ am _evil. I'm cruel, and heartless, and just plain mean._ A moment's consideration, and she shrugged. _Well, this _is _high school. And if you're a high school girl who wants to be popular, then a little evil isn't a bad thing; it's what you need to survive._

Buffy straightened her shoulders, tugged the hem of her snug skirt back down where it belonged, and turned her mind to the task at hand.

_All right, there is absolutely no way 'Merrie' gets to keep that room. Her and the little creature army being right across the hall is just not acceptable, and I want her elsewhere, stat. Preferably far, far elsewhere. Now, how do I make that happen? She seemed fairly nice... hm. Actually she seemed a little_ too _nice, and awfully quick to forgive me for terminating her tiny friends. I'm guessing she's used to being pushed around because she's hideous; she's quick to give in to anyone with authority or confidence. So the thing to do is play on that...._

* * * * *


	5. Two by Two, Eyes of Blue

**'Two by Two, [Eyes] of Blue'**

.

.

.

Buffy scanned the hall, watching as various unfamiliar girls moved into and out of their rooms, or wandered around exploring. The earlier bustle was slowing down a bit, as most everyone had settled their living arrangements by now. A quick glance inside the room behind her showed Faith watching closely as Merrie carved at a pink blob with a sharp metal tool. They looked like they would be occupied for a while, so she walked back down to where the hall opened onto the balcony overlooking the Atrium.

Another girl of about Buffy's age was already standing by the railing, taking in the view. Ordinarily the blonde wouldn't have had much to say about someone when she hadn't even seen their face, much less spoken to them, but in this case an exclamation slipped out before she even realized she was speaking.

"Oh my _god_, you're like a Pantene commercial! Only more!" That happened to be one of her favorite brands of hair care products; it cost more than some, and yet wasn't so expensive as to make her mother's brain explode when she saw the price.

Usually.

The commercials for their products tended to feature slow-motion shots of the most incredible, shiny, silky hair imaginable; and also tended to favor women whose hair was extremely long.

_This_ girl was all that, only, like Buffy had just blurted out, _more_. The ebony hair was as glossy, silky, and soft-looking as anything in the commercials. It was also so long that it not only reached the floor, but actually trailed along it for three or four feet behind the girl. Upon hearing the unsolicited comment from behind her, the stranger turned around, and the sight of her evoked an unexpected stab of envy in Buffy.

She was African American, her skin much darker than that of most people whom Americans labeled 'black'. This girl truly was black, instead of merely being a light or dark shade of brown.

She was also stunning. From her finely-sculpted cheekbones to the perfect line of jaw and chin, her heart-shaped face was simply amazing. The fact that her eyes were a strange silvery color only made her beauty that much more exotic.

_Thank god she's skinny as a mop handle,_ Buffy told herself after a moment's appraisal. _If she had a body to match that face, I'd be totally jealous._ She tried to leave it there, only it wasn't very easy to lie inside her own head that way. _Okay, I would be even_ more _jealous than I already am. I would kill to have her bone structure._

The girl was gazing at her, those silver eyes cool and aloof.

"Pardon?" she said, her voice carrying a faint, lilting trace of an accent. Buffy smiled, and moved closer, and gestured at that incredible fall of glossy ebony.

"Your hair. I meant your hair is more longer, um, much longer than what I've seen in commercials. It's very long hair."

She winced inside, mentally smacking herself for managing such an incredibly lame statement when she was trying to make a good first impression. The girl seemed to agree with Buffy's assessment. She blinked slowly, then nodded, her eyes wide with mock astonishment.

"My, what a stunningly perceptive observation; my hair _is_ long! Really, I've never, ever had anyone notice that before, much less mention it to me. Thank you so very much!"

Buffy winced internally yet again, and a surge of anger went through her as the insult registered. She restrained her temper, however, and managed to keep a mask of calm civility on her face.

"Sorry about that; I'm sure you get that all the time, given how... ohmygodit_moves!_"

Her attempt at being cool and unruffled fell apart as the entire incredible length of the girl's hair stirred, lifted, and began to writhe in the air all around her, with dozens of glossy tendrils probing about like curious snakes investigating their surroundings.

_This is her power?_ Buffy wondered, boggling slightly. _Wow, that is either the most amazing mutation in the world... or the most useless. Possibly both._ Because even though it would be wonderful to have the ability to restyle her hair at will, to change her look in seconds and to never have another bad hair day... well, it was still just animated hair. _What do you do with that, if somebody comes at you with a gun or a knife? Say 'Stop, or I'll subject you to the sensual pleasure that comes from being caressed by my silky locks!'? How scary can you possibly be if a beautician with a pair of scissors and some styling gel can beat you in a fight?_

Unfortunately, her second outburst hadn't impressed the girl any more than the first.

"Congratulations," she said, her voice practically dripping with contempt. "Your eyes are _still_ working. Now excuse me, I have anywhere else to be." She stalked past Buffy, her chin high. As she passed, the temptation to reach out and touch one of those moving, living tendrils of hair was too much to resist, and Buffy's hand moved stealthily towards it.

"_Don't!_" the other girl snapped, her head whipping around. Those silver eyes were blazing with an inner light now, and the air around her head took on a faint, hazy glow. "You do _not_ touch me without permission," she continued, in a quiet, dangerous tone. "And besides, I have better things to do than let another empty-headed blonde paw at me."

That last bit had Buffy's temper well and truly set to explode, and a dozen scathing comebacks flashed through her mind. She bit them back, though her eyes did narrow to a deadly glare.

"Gee, Rapunzel; put me down for eleven boxes of sorry and some thin mints," she bit out in a voice like brittle ice. "Maybe I shouldn't have gotten grabby; that's totally my bad. I've never been around this many... unusual people, and I'm not really sure how to handle it yet." Still holding the other girl's eyes, she deliberately reached up with a hand and gave her hair a flip over her shoulder. "And I may be blonde, but don't _ever_ call me empty-headed again, or I'll tie that hair of yours into so many knots a boy scout convention won't be able figure out how to undo them."

That silver gaze held hers for what seemed like a long time, and then the glow faded as the other girl nodded.

"We'll see," was all she said, then she turned and walked away.

Buffy scowled, her hands clenched into the tightest fists the length of her nails would allow.

_Well_, that _went just perfectly, didn't it? I'm usually much better at this sort of thing. This place really does have me off balance, especially all these weird people with their weird... weirdnesses...._ She growled at herself in annoyance, reaching up with both hands to give her hair a few sharp tugs. _Come on, Buffy, focus! Get your head in the game or else you really will deserve to have those blonde jokes aimed at you!_

She still had to get Merrie out of that room, and she had a very narrow window of time in which to make it happen. Going to the balcony's railing, she leaned over and peered out at the expansive floor of the Atrium.

_Okay. I need something very specific, so let's see...._

There were a few of the male students still down there, including the rat-man and the huge one made of metal. None of those mattered; her plan required mutants of the girl-shaped variety.

_Nope, no, not her, no...._

One of them caught her eye; a painfully plain girl with curly red hair. Lacking the looks required to draw male attention, she was instead showing off her power for two of the boys. She had a small leather pouch or purse of some kind, and kept reaching into it and pulling things out: a handful of fresh flowers, three frosty cans of cola one after the other, a remote control, a stack of CD's, a baseball bat, an order of french fries, seemingly endless handfuls of loose change....

Buffy frowned, trying to figure out what was going on there.

_Have to admit, that one seems like a great power to have. I can't see how she could be making all that stuff, so maybe it teleports into the pouch when she reaches in for it? Which I guess means that somebody, somewhere, is now missing three cans of Pepsi, lots of nickels, dimes and quarters, half of their lunch, and part of their music collection._ She shook her head, dismissing the girl. _Not what I need. And she's not pretty at all, so no competition there for anything that matters. _

Scanning the paths that were visible, examining the small clumps of students meeting for the first time, her eyes swept from one side of the space to the other, then started back.

_No, no, not her, she's got scales and a tail; ugh! No, no again, no--There. Well, maybe._

Two female students were confronting one of the clipboard-toting staff people, possibly the same woman who had been out front earlier. They were around seventy feet away, in an open, semi-noisy place....

_Not a problem, thanks to the new and improved, super-enhanced Buffy ears_.

She cocked her head and _listened_.

"--Don't care what you say, I'm not going to stay in that room!" One of the girls half-shouted in obvious frustration.

"And I won't stay in mine, either," the other added. "Not with that doofy _person_ in there! I'm not going to stay anywhere except with my sister, and you can't _make_ me!"

The clipboard woman took a deep breath, obviously drawing on a rapidly-diminishing reserve of patience.

"I've already told you, the guidelines are very clear. Administration has instructed us not to interfere with student rooming arrangements. It is their belief that you should begin learning about cooperation, compromise and fair-play as soon as possible, and that includes working out who gets which room. It is much better for you to decide these things among yourselves, free of outside interference." She lowered her head to regard them over her dark-framed glasses. "I do, however, assume that you've asked your respective roommates to share one of the rooms, while you two take the other?"

"Well, _duh!_" one of them said. "We tried that right after we tried to pound on them."

"Yeah, they won't do it. Probably just to get back at us."

The woman looked from one girl to the other.

"You only tried to reason with them _after_ you assaulted them?"

The first girl nodded unhappily.

"Uh huh. 'Cept when I tried to hit her she did some kind of ghosting thing. _So_ unfair."

The other one nodded glumly.

"Mine could make everything dark. I wasn't even able to _find_ her once she turned it on."

The harried woman made a show of checking her wristwatch, then gave them an entirely false smile of understanding.

"I'm very sorry; as I said, I'm not allowed to interfere. My advice is to accept that you can't room together. Look at it as a chance to grow, to get to know new people and make new friends."

Both girls stiffened, glared, and clenched their fists.

"We don't _want_ new people and new friends!" One of them screamed back at her.

"We only want _us_!" the other snarled in agreement.

The woman backed away, clearly unwilling to argue the matter any further. When she turned and hurried off, the two girls were left standing there in the beautifully landscaped courtyard, their two large trunks on the ground beside them.

_Perfect_, Buffy thought to herself. Then she paused to take a careful look at the two, her vision blurring for an instant before resolving into a closer view.

_Ah, no wonder I couldn't tell their voices apart. They're twins._

The girls were both petite, probably not much taller than Buffy herself, and more slimly-built as well. Their brown-blonde hair was medium long, and they were fairly pretty if not extremely so. They apparently liked to do the cutesy twin thing of dressing alike too; both of them were in blue and white football jerseys and ragged blue jeans.

Smiling happily to herself, Buffy hurried down the flight of stairs that led down from the balcony to the second level, and from there down to the floor of the Atrium. She took the stairs three at a time despite her heels, without really paying attention to what she was doing.

_This is going to be_ too _easy,_ she told herself as she reached ground level. _I kind of wish they were more powerful, though. If neither of them could manage to take a room away from one girl... uh oh._

Someone else had noticed the argument between the girls and the admin lady, and once she was gone he had clanked his way over to where they stood.

A very, very large someone.

"Twins, huh?" the huge metal man said, his bass voice echoing strangely within his armored chest. His face shifted into something that vaguely resembled a leer. "I've always wanted to do twins. And babes, you're in luck, 'cause there's lots and lots of me to go around."

The two of them stood shoulder to shoulder, holding hands and looking up at the giant with no trace of fear.

"Lots of you to go around what?" one of them asked curiously, she and her sister both seeming genuinely puzzled.

Buffy, who had been about to stride up to them and intervene, decided to hang back and watch instead.

_Weird. They seem kind of naive for their age. I'd say they're a year or two older than me, only they act more like ten year olds._

The towering metal mutant looked from one to the other, his grin becoming less certain.

"Huh? Lots of me for both of you. To... you know."

The girls glanced at each other, then gave him two blank looks and simultaneous shrugs.

"No, we don't know," one said.

"We know you're really stupid-looking, is that what you mean?" the other asked. "And how come a MalForm is running around loose, anyway?" The other girl cocked her head and narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"Don't they have a secure containment facility here for mistakes like you? Do your handlers know you're out of your cage?"

His head swiveled from one to the other, and an angry glower turned his metal face into an industrial-age fright mask.

"Listen, if you don't want to be my girls it's your loss; you don't know what you're missing. But don't go making fun of me, or else I'll--"

"[Your _girls_?]" the twins asked incredulously, their voices blending in perfect chorus.

"You think we'd have _sex_?" the one on the right asked, her eyes wide.

"With _you_?" the other said an instant later. And then they both began laughing hysterically.

_I take it back,_ thought Buffy as she observed from a safe distance. _This might not work out after all. These two are even dumber than that Harmony girl; this guy looks like he can bench press a bus, and they're_ laughing_ at him?_

The big man made a sound like grinding gears deep in his massive chest, and reached out with two plate-sized hands. Grabbing hold of each girl by the waist, he effortlessly lifted them into the air.

"Nobody laughs at Tank," he growled, fixing each of them with a frightening glare. "If you were guys, you'd be learnin' that the hard way right now. Since you're girls, I'll go easy on ya, and just make you say you're sorry."

The twins, apparently too dim to be scared even now, were still giggling uncontrollably.

"Oh wow, that's so nice of you," one of them managed.

"Yes, we're _sooo_ relieved," the other said, wiping laugh-induced tears from her eyes.

This obviously wasn't the sort of reaction the metal man had expected. With another grinding growl he shook them both back and forth, making their upper bodies and dangling legs whip back and forth violently.

"Stop _laughing_! You don't shut up and give me some respect, I might have to hurt you! You want that?!"

The girls both stopped giggling, although identical grins remained fixed on their cute, pixyish faces.

"If you don't let us down pretty soon--"

"--Then we're going to hurt _you_," they said, one picking up when the other stopped, all without missing a beat.

"Actually, we probably will anyway," the first one amended a moment later.

"Because we're still mad about the room thing," her sister said. "And we don't think you can cheat, and go ghosty or dark. So it'll be more fun to pound on you."

The anger on Tank's face faded to something more like wary uncertainty. Whatever he looked like, it seemed he was at least smart enough to be cautious when a pair of unknown mutants felt this confident they could hurt him.

"Listen," he began, his voice much less grinding than before. "I think we all got mad over nothin', okay? So let's all back off, and chill out, and forget all about it, right?"

"Too late," the girl on the left told him, her eyes beginning to shine with an eerie blue light.

"Way too late," the other one told him, her eyes echoing the glow of her sister's. "We _really_ want to hit something."

"Thanks for volunteering!" the first girl said.

Then they each reached down, took hold of a metal hand, and pried the fingers open. Breaking the big man's grip seemed to take little effort, and they were still smiling as they dropped to the ground to stand facing him.

For his part, Tank backed slowly away, staring at the much smaller girls with a mix of both awe and unease. For someone as large and intimidating as himself, both were probably unfamiliar sensations.

"Okay, I get that you're strong," he told them. "You still don't want to mess with me, so just turn around and--Hey!"

One of the girls strode towards him, eyes shining blue. He put out a massive hand backed by an even more massive arm to fend her off... and she smacked it aside. The resultant _--Claaaang--_ echoed loudly throughout the glass-enclosed courtyard, and Tank's arm was knocked wide, letting the girl step in close and fire a small fist straight into his stomach.

Buffy felt both eyebrows trying to reach her hairline as the massive, eight-foot tall iron mutant folded forward with a pained, metallic wheeze. The girl, nearly three feet shorter and tiny compared to his bulk, stepped back as her twin bounced forward and delivered a sweeping uppercut to his chin. This time the sound was an odd sort of _--TunnKaang--_, like someone had used a sledgehammer on a length of rusty pipe. Tank's head snapped back even as he flew backwards, his feet lifting several feet into the air. When he came down he slid on his back for a short distance and ended up with his head beneath the water cascading from one of the decorative fountains.

"He wasn't much fun after all," one of the girls grumbled, shaking her fist like the punch had left her knuckles stinging. Her sister nodded sadly as she flexed her fingers.

"Too bad we can't take _his_ room; he fights like a _girl_."

Over on the sidelines, Buffy was one of a dozen or so students watching the proceedings.

"Man, that guy got punked!" one short, dark-haired boy was telling another. "He never had a chance!" His companion, a taller teen wearing a tee shirt featuring howling wolves, looked doubtful.

"Don't be so sure," he told the other. "Remember, tanks can do other stuff besides running into things."

Buffy heard that, and turned her head just in time to see the metal man sitting up. His chin sported a visible dent, and his strange face showed pain, but that didn't keep him from climbing back to his feet. Neither of the twins had bothered to watch their fallen foe, so neither of them saw what he did next.

Extending his arms towards the girls, he clenched his fists, then brought them sharply together.

_--THOOOMMMM--_

There was no energy bolt, no flash of light, just a shattering concussion that sent both of the girls flying. Dust and bits of decorative paving filled the air for a moment, and when it began to clear there was a shallow crater in the ground where they had been standing.

_Uh, 'gulp'?_ Buffy suddenly found herself feeling very small, and very intimidated. _Definitely never wanting to fight this guy unless... well, never. And too bad about the twins, darn it; they were exactly what I needed to--_

Thirty feet beyond ground zero of the detonation, one of the girls extracted herself from the wreckage of what had been a beautiful illuminated sculpture made from copper and glass. Off to her right, the other girl stood up and brushed off the dirt and debris from where she had plowed a trench through the landscaped flowers and grass.

"Ouch," sculpture-girl noted, rubbing at a slightly bruised arm.

"Ouch," her sister agreed, while wiggling one pinky finger back and forth in her ear. "That was loud. And cheating."

They both started forward, glaring furiously at the metal man.

"[We _hate_ cheaters!]" they yelled in unison, and charged forward.

Buffy, along with the others, moved back quickly.

_This... is a teeny, tiny bit more intense than my last school,_ she noted, feeling a little dazed. _And it's totally depressing to find out that I'm not the toughest girl around; all three of these crazy people are stronger and more hurt-resistant than me. Isn't that supposed to be against the rules or something?_

"You chicks are total psychos, you know that?!"

_--Claangngngggg--_

"Yeah? Well you have rustbreath, and steel wool for hair!"

"What she said!"

_--WhamWhamWHAM--_

"Owww!"

"Owww!"

_--Bnnnnggggnnnngggg--_

["Boot to the head! Doofus!"] (in stereo)

_--TunnnnkTinnngWHOOMP--_

"Uhh! You little--!"

_--KaaaangToomf--_

"You _missed_."

"'Cause you're big and stupid and slow."

_--THOOOOMMM!--_

"Ha! Yeah, bitches! How'd ya like th--Aaaaaah!"

_--Crreeeaaaakkk!--_

"We liked it just fine, thanks!"

"Aw, look: the stupid MalForm is all bendy-wendy now!"

"Neato! Let's see if his legs can do it too!"

_--CRRREEEEAAAAAKKKK!--_

"Arrrrgggghhhhh!"

"[Ooooh, they _can_!]"

Difficult as it was to look away from the spectacle before her, Buffy still noticed the approaching woman before anyone else. Tallish, though not towering, fit-looking but not overmuscled, she really didn't look like anything special. Even so, when she shouldered through the onlookers, pretty much everyone made room. The ones who didn't found themselves flying headlong in various directions.

"Stop this shit!" The woman bellowed in a powerful voice. "Right _now_!"

The two girls froze in place, both of them perched atop a prone and helpless Tank. The big mutant seemed to be unconscious, which was probably a mercy given how his arms and legs had been folded and bent around his torso until he resembled an enormous, vaguely spherical plate-steel pretzel. The black-haired woman made a curt gesture, indicating a spot in front of her. To Buffy's amazement, the twins reluctantly climbed off their defeated foe and trudged over to stand before the woman.

_Huh? I mean... HUH_?

The woman actually had the two miniature wrecking machines thoroughly cowed. She didn't make any move towards the pistol or metal rod hanging on her belt, or any of the several small gadgets there either. All she did was glare, with some truly frightening dark green eyes.

"Have we not already had this conversation?" she asked the girls, her voice soft and deadly. They both mumbled something inaudible, and the woman raised a hand slightly.

"A little louder, bratlings; I didn't quite hear that."

The twins looked up at her with identical, sullen stares.

"[Yes, Kimura,]" they chorused. The woman nodded.

"Yes, we did. And if I wasn't busy running around trying to keep all of the other little monsters from running wild, I'd beat the hell out of you both _again_." She looked around, meeting the eyes of everyone standing there watching.

"All of you, listen up. I'm the head of security here, and if you break the rules then I'm the one who's going to drag you upstairs to explain yourselves." She looked over at where Tank still lay, then at the damage to the immediate surroundings. "This, for example, is against the rules. Don't get me wrong; if you want to shove or smack or zap your fellow schoolchildren, feel free. I really and truly do not care what you do to each other." Her eyes grew cold, and she planted her fists on her hips. "However, excessive 'conflict resolution' inside school buildings _is_ something I care about. This place cost a lot of money to set up for you sprogs, and we do not want it knocked down or blown up before we have even one day of classes. Am I understood?"

An assortment of nods and words of agreement came back, and she nodded.

"Outstanding. Then get out of the way; pretzel-boy over there's won himself a free trip to medical."

Buffy moved aside, and four large men wheeling an oversized dolly hurried past. Together they struggled to roll the unconscious mutant onto the wheeled platform, as Kimura turned back to the twins.

"You two get off with a warning this time... mostly because I think what you did to that overgrown tin can is funny as hell." They looked surprised, then relieved, but before they could do anything else the woman brought them up short.

"_But_--Next time you have the urge to rearrange somebody's anatomy, take it outside first. Or else I'll make sure you two aren't a matching set anymore." She looked from one to the other. "By removing a key body part or two from you." They nodded quietly, though by then the woman had already turned and was striding away.

Buffy watched her go, thoughts tumbling over one another.

_This explains... not much. Going by what she said, it almost sounds like they_ want _the students to fight each other... just not around things that are breakable._ Her eyes widened suddenly, and she glanced behind her, down the dorm hallway.

_And now I see why some of the rooms are great and some of them are awful; they wanted us to fight over those, too. Only I still don't see_ why.

Turning her head, she looked over at the twin girls. They were sitting dejectedly on the large trunks that held their belongings, holding hands and looking down at nothing in particular.

_Alright. Looks like there's going to be more than just the usual high-school politics and dirty tricks happening here. If I want to be on top of the heap instead of buried underneath it, I'll need some muscle on my side. These two little bruisers are going to be even handier than I'd thought._

Taking a deep breath, Buffy walked forward.

"Hey," she said, and when they glanced up at her she nodded after the woman. "Really nice lady there, huh?"

Two scowls came back at her, and she noted that the two girls really were perfectly identical in every detail.

"Kimura's a ginormous bitchwhore," the twin on the left told her, though Buffy noted that she said it quietly.

"You don't want to piss her off," the other one added, watching as the woman exited the Atrium while talking on a small phone or radio. "Unless you like eating food through a straw."

The blonde nodded to show that she'd heard, then gave them a smile and a calculatedly skeptical look.

"She looks tough, sure, but I saw you guys. You walked all over that metal guy, and made it look easy. There's no way whatserface can be tougher than _him_. Is there?"

The girls looked up from examining their ripped and torn clothing, having only now noticed it was much worse for wear after their brawl.

"Tougher?" One of them asked, eyes wide. "She's _waaay_ tougher than that guy."

"She's stronger than he is," the other noted, trying to tug her ripped jersey around so that it preserved her modesty. "Not as strong as us, but still awfully strong."

"She's crazy heavy, too," the first one continued. "And totally untruckdustable."

Buffy frowned.

"Indestructible?"

They nodded.

"That too. She can't be hurt."

"By anything."

"She's like Juggernaut."

"With boobs."

Nodding like she actually knew who that was, Buffy moved forward until she was standing directly in front of them.

"Still, you guys were amazing. I'm so glad you put that stupid jock in his place." Privately she thought they'd overreacted hugely, only saying that wouldn't have helped her accomplish her goal. "I'm Buffy, by the way." They glanced at each other, then back at her.

"[Hi]," they said, their voices blending into one. Then the girl on the left went on.

"I'm Miranda. This is my sister, Marinda." The other twin, grinning, shook her head vigorously.

"She is such a liar; _I'm_ Miranda, _she's_ Marinda."

"Am not!"

"See? Still lying!"

Their sullen mood dissipated as they broke down into fits of giggles. Buffy, still with a friendly smile, gave them a quick once-over from this closer range.

Her initial impression had been correct; the girls were both small, only an inch taller than herself, if that. Despite their petite builds, they managed to look tomboyish and athletic. Their brown hair was a little wild, and liberally streaked with blonde, like they'd spent a lot of time outdoors over the summer. Both were pretty, if not anything close to Faith's level... or her own, obviously. Still, they looked perfectly normal. Perfectly identical too, even close-up, but normal... except for the glowing eyes thing.

Although, interestingly, that glow was gone now, leaving only two pairs of innocent, dark blue eyes.

"So anyway," she said, diving into her pitch. "I heard someone say you guys are looking for a room? Because you don't want to be separated?"

_That_ got her their undivided attention.

"Yes, we need a room to ourselves," Miranda said. Or maybe it was Marinda.

"We _can't_ be apart," said Marinda-maybe-Miranda, her blue eyes earnest as her hand tightened on that of her sister. "We need to be together; why can't anyone else understand that?"

"It seems simple enough to me," Buffy assured them. "And guess what? I happen to know where there's a fantastic room just waiting for you guys to move in."

They stared at her, the desperation on their faces slowly turning to hope. It was sort of eerie how it happened in exactly the same way, at exactly the same time for both girls.

"You really mean that?" one of them asked, reaching out to grab her by the arm.

"For real?" the other demanded, taking hold of the other arm. "A room just for us?"

Buffy nodded, noting while she did so that even though their fingers were white from their grip on her arms, there wasn't anything more than normal human strength in either girl's hands at that moment.

"Absolutely. And I'd love to have you guys as neighbors; me and another girl are right across the hall."

They both bounced to their feet, their eyes never leaving hers.

"You're not joking?"

"It's okay if we stay together?"

"They usually tell us it's for our own good when they split us up."

"People _always_ try to split us up."

Looking from one to the other, Buffy shook her head.

"I'm not like everyone else. I'm perfectly okay with you guys being together every second, day and night, if that's what you want. Only...." She stopped to clear her throat, then looked at them apologetically. "The only thing is... before we go any further, do you guys happen to do anything really... strange?"

Two heads tilted as one, and they both regarded her through narrowed eyes.

"Strange? Like what? one asked.

"Is this like with the metal man? Do you want us to do sex with you?"

They looked at each other, then back at her.

"We think you're really pretty, Buffy," the girl on the left began.

"Only we're already in a relationship," said the girl on the right.

"[Both of us]." they said in unison.

Buffy found herself blushing furiously.

"No, no, okay so very _much_ no." The twins regarded her with identical expressions of puzzlement. The blonde girl made vague gestures in the air as she tried to explain.

"By strange I mean... gross. Like tearing off parts of your own body and making little claymation figures out of them. Or giving off gamma rays, or FM radio signals, or anything else that requires me to wear lead-lined clothing if I'm within a one-mile radius."

She looked at them expectantly, and in turn they looked at each other in silence for several seconds. Reaching some decision, the turned their gazes back on her.

"We figure the strangest thing about us--"

"--And by 'strangest' we mean 'most annoying to other people'--"

"--Is the thing where sometimes--"

"--We forget to talk like--"

"--You people do--"

"--And start finishing--"

"Each other's sentences."

Left twin grimaced and went on, speaking slowly and carefully.

"We don't understand why, but for some reason everybody hates when we do that."

Buffy smiled, hugely relieved.

"Well, that's not bad at all. If that's the weirdest thing about you guys then I'm both happy and smurfy. And also not nauseous, which is a definite plus."

They considered her a moment longer, as if debating something, then both of them gave her a sheepish look. Speaking in perfect chorus they said:

"[There's also the thing where our family spent twenty-seven generations only having babies with other mutants, doing genetic science stuff to themselves, and sort of inbreeding within the family all the time, trying to turn us into a clan of living Gods. We were gonna get to take over the world, and be all-powerful, and live forever.]" They sighed. ["That would have been neat."]

The blonde girl stared at them unblinkingly as she processed this.

"Okaaaaay...."

_I'm pretty sure I have no response to that. Um. Nope, not finding a response--Oh wait! Got one!_

"You were going to take over the world?" Two nods. "What happened?"

They scowled, though the expressions were more sad than fierce.

"SHIELD," said the girl on the right.

"They musta found out about us."

"One night they snuck inside the Stronghold,"

"(That's where we lived, Buffy. It was big and awesome and dug out inside a humongous mountain.)"

"And they had a Nu-cu-lur bomb thing, like that Bush man was always talking about."

They were still holding hands, and suddenly they seemed much younger than the eighteen years or so she guestimated them as.

"Everybody got blowed to bits," one said sadly.

"Our whole family; everybody we ever knew, since we were born."

Buffy found herself staring blankly again.

_And here I thought I had it rough, with mom and dad splitting up. Wow, poor kids. Although now I see why they're so...._

"You guys lived inside a mountain? Your whole lives?"

They nodded.

"Till we was fifteen, and it went boom. We only got away because we were playing in the deep shelter when the bad guys came and killed everybody else."

"There was a secret tunnel that went outside from there."

The blonde girl nodded in understanding.

"SHIELD... that's some government thing, right? Where everybody dresses weird and carries laser pistols, like on G.I. Joe?"

"Pretty much," one of them agreed. "And they're totally scaredy-cats, 'cause they didn't even _try_ to fight fair. If our family had been awake to use their powers, those guys woulda been smooshed!"

"We saw it on the security monitor," the other informed her. "They just snuck in and left the bomb."

"And then they bravely ran away."

The girls' eyes were bright with unshed tears, their fists clenched tight.

"[They _cheated_]."

"That was way wrong of them," Buffy agreed. "And because you guys grew up in there, with nobody around except your family, you're still kind of... inexperienced." They didn't answer, they just stared at her, hopefully.

_Okay, very freaky stuff there, but the important thing is they're_ not _ripping off their faces. If I have to choose between the icky skin-falling-off-and-coming-to-life girl, and these two seriously warped yet somewhat cute and sweet mini-Shivas, it's not a tough decision._

"Okay, I can handle all that, no problem. Besides, home schooled kids are always kind of strange; everyone knows this. And I respect everyone's religious freedom; you can worship anything you want, even yourselves."

They still looked uncertain, so she clarified.

"I think we can be friends, if you want. I'd like us to be. Want to come upstairs with me and see your room?"

She was instantly hit with a combination tackle/hug, and was driven three steps backwards before she could regain her footing.

"I take it that this means 'yes'?" she asked wryly.

"[Yes!]" they shouted, squeezing her tight. Then they let her go and each bent to lift a trunk. At something like two feet by three feet by five feet long, the luggage was far larger than the girls themselves. When they straightened up, however, it was with casual ease... and with glowing blue eyes.

Buffy nodded to herself.

"Okay guys, follow me."

* * * * *


	6. It's my way, or There's only my way

A/N: Thanks go out this time to not only my Ninja-riffic Beta, Diana, but also to the newly assembled elite team of Pre-Readers--RPG Warrior, Sheri, and Laoshi. I'm going to try not to post new chapters until at least two of the three have reported back to me. This means the rest of you _should_ get a slightly clearer, less error-filled block of story to read. Any errors or bits of confusion that remain are my fault, not theirs.  
_____________________________________________________________

'It's my way or... actually there's *only* my way'

.

.

Buffy led the way up the stairs, quite happy with how things were working out.

"So, you guys are gods, huh?" she glanced behind her at the twins. "That must be a lot of fun, with the miracles and the smiting of unbelievers and so on?" One of them; she wasn't even trying to tell them apart by this point, shook her head sadly.

"We're not really gods."

"'Cause the project didn't get finished," the other girl added dejectedly, her eyes shimmering with the same eerie blue glow as her sister's. "It needed another few generations... only that won't ever happen now."

"We don't have the really good powers, like blowing stuff up with our minds an' writing on the moon with beams from our eyes," the first one said, her expression one of crushing disappointment. "Those would have been so _cool_."

"That's a... terrible shame, really, that you can't do that. Just terrible," Buffy agreed in a small voice, torn between feeling sorry for the girls on one hand and being faintly terrified on the other. The knowledge that all this might have actually happened if not for SHIELD's 'cowardly' little raid left her feeling a tiny bit shaken.

"We can still do some stuff, though," one of them assured her. "Especially the smiting."

Her sister nodded in agreement, looking much cheerier than she had a moment before.

"Yeah, we can smite really good, Buffy," she said. "It's our favoritest thing to do."

The blonde girl smiled, and for once it was completely genuine.

"I'm glad to hear that, guys. I'm pretty sure you're going to have lots of chances for that kind of fun really soon now."

They both nodded as they followed her onto the second level balcony, and around to the narrower stairs that led up to the third.

"Are we gonna have to fight somebody for our room?" one of them asked, sounding eager at the prospect. Buffy shook her head.

"Shouldn't have to, no. Just let me do the talking, okay?"

["Okay,"] they said, speaking in chorus.

When they reached the third and highest level, Buffy walked towards the room in question. Along the way she noted a cardboard box sitting in the hallway. Obviously it belonged to a student, who would doubtless return for it any minute. Buffy leaned down and poked through it, making a pleased sound as she pulled a slim soft cover book free.

"Here we go, guys," she said, indicating the first door on the left. "Just wait out here till I call for you." Without waiting for an answer, she strode into the room.

* * * * *

Buffy found Faith and Merrie right where she'd left them, standing at one of the desks and peering closely at something lying there.

"An' a drop of your blood is what wakes 'em up?" the purple-haired girl was asking.

"Yes. And since we're copying someone, the second drop of blood that comes from that person actually gives the poppet a little echo of their personality, too. Now let's see if--"

"Hey guys!" Buffy interrupted, giving the floor a quick look before moving further into the room. "I'm afraid there's some bad news about the... uh, what is _that_?"

She pointed at the tiny figure on the desk between the other two. The figure that was now stirring, and moving to stand upright.

"Oh, hey, B," Faith said to her, the mischievous gleam in her eyes matched by her smirking grin. "Merrie here was just showin' me how her mutie mojo works. And since she was making one of these little guys anyway, I thought; what the hell? Might as well make it as awesome as possible, right?"

Buffy didn't want to come closer; she _really_ didn't want to come closer to any of the little horrors than was absolutely necessary, and yet she couldn't help herself. She edged closer to the desk, hesitated, then took a few more reluctant steps. The thing was standing up now, and she saw that it had been dressed in little doll-sized clothes; a shimmery black outfit that left its arms and back bare, with a matching pair of slacks. As Buffy came within arm's reach of the table, the tiny person turned and looked up at her. It looked at her with dark eyes, and used one perfectly-formed hand to brush back its long purple hair.

"Faith," she began, then had to stop, as words had deserted her.

"Pretty cool, huh?" the other girl asked, still grinning at her. Then she pitched her voice a little higher and tried for an accent. "And I shall call her... Mini-Faith." She chuckled at the look on the blonde's face, then leaned down and reached out a hand. "Hey there, lil' me; how's it goin'?"

The miniature version looked up at the approaching hand fearlessly, even though it was slightly longer than she was tall. When Faith held it within reach, the little figure stepped closer (in her bare feet, Buffy noted) and poked that vast palm with one finger, as if testing to see what it was made of. Walking around to examine the other side, it noticed human-sized Faith's black nail polish, and looked down at its own tiny, exquisitely-detailed fingers. Wiggling them experimentally, it looked up at the humans towering overhead and showed them the back of her hand as if to say 'Hey, where's _mine_?'.

Faith chuckled again, and even though she was trying to keep her face turned away from Buffy, the blonde could see that Merrie was smiling faintly as well.

"Sorry about that," she said to Faith, splitting her attention between the large and small versions of the girl. "The hair was hard to miss, but I didn't notice your nail polish."

Buffy ignored the byplay; she was still having difficulty believing her eyes.

"How did you _do_ that?" she asked the gruesome girl. "She doesn't look like you carved her out from a chunk of your arm; that's a tiny little _person_ standing there!" Looking down and shifting her eyes to magnification mode, she watched as Mini-Faith examined her hand closely, comparing it to the gigantic version that Faith was now drawing slowly away. Buffy looked up again. "She has fingers! She has finger_nails_!"

Merrie nodded, looking more confident when speaking on a topic she knew better than anyone.

"It's part of my power. I only have to rough out the shape with my sculpting tools. Once it's far enough along, it finishes itself, so long as I keep concentrating on it." She stole a quick glance up at the two girls. "And like I told her, I can even make it more real if it's an actual person being copied. It only takes one drop of blood from them, which Faith already gave her, and--whoops!"

She broke off in startled surprise, and Buffy looked down in time to see Mini-Faith finishing a sudden dash and leap off the edge of the desk... right at her. The blonde let out a little shriek and skipped backwards--too late. The little figure landed on her forearm, started to slide off as Buffy raised her arm in preparation of giving it a convulsive shake, and managed to grab hold of the (relatively) massive wrist. Buffy froze, her breath caught in her throat.

_Ick ick ick! It's going to bite me it's going to claw me and bite me and give me some mutant disease and my skin will start falling off just like hers and I'll be hideous and oh my god it's going to bite me!_

"Oh! I'm sorry, they're usually not that lively at first! Don't worry, it'll all be fine!"

Listening to Merrie's voice, Buffy realized that she'd squeezed her eyes tightly shut without consciously deciding to do so. She could feel the tiny creature moving from her wrist to her hand, but she didn't dare move lest it decide to hurt her. Dreading what she would see, she forced herself to open her eyes. Her hand was still held up in front of her, and the tiny creature was right there. Mini-Faith had climbed up to where she could stand in the valley where Buffy's thumb joined her hand. She had both arms wrapped tight around the first and middle fingers, and seemed to be squeezing as tightly as she could. Buffy swallowed painfully, her eyes locked on the tiny eyes that were staring back at her.

_It looks exactly like her. Exactly. And it hasn't bitten me. Yet._

"Um, is there any way you can get this thing off of me? As quickly as possible?"

There was movement at the edge of her vision, and Merrie was there, holding out one partially de-fleshed hand.

"I'm trying," she murmured, and then addressed the little figure. "Come here," she called softly. "Here, little one, come to me, there's a good girl." Mini-Faith looked down at the hand, but didn't let go and leap down. Instead she shook her head vigorously and held on even more tightly. Merrie frowned in consternation. "That's strange; they always behave when I specifically tell them to do something." She held her hand a little closer to Buffy's, and the blonde was unsure which repelled her more, the tiny doll-person or the bare muscle and exposed veins of the girl's hand.

"Sometime soon would be good," Buffy managed, her voice remarkably steady given her level of anxiety at that moment. Merrie nodded nervously.

"I'm trying, I'm trying. Here, pretty girl! Let go of her and come here!"

This time Mini-Faith didn't shake her head; this time she glared at her creator with clear anger... and let go with one arm just long enough to hold up a hand and extend one tiny finger.

The middle one.

Merrie gasped, Buffy stared, and Faith fell back against the wall, laughing so hard she could barely stand.

"That's... a pretty accurate copy, actually," Buffy managed, feeling more and more disconnected from the entire surreal experience. Merrie pulled back, her face (what there was of it) showing confusion and dismay.

"She won't listen to me at all; I don't understand." Then she looked up at Buffy. "But she really seems to like you. Maybe if you told her to let go, she would?"

Buffy didn't really believe that much intelligence could fit inside such a teeny-tiny skull, but anything was better than letting this go on forever. Glancing behind her, Buffy found that she had backed up nearly to the bed. Taking a deep breath, she turned around slowly and lowered her hand until it was touching the coverlet.

"Ah," She cleared her throat, nervously aware that three sets of eyes were on her, including one pair that were much smaller than the others. "Could you hop down? Come on, jump down here... Faith? Please? For me?"

The little face was turned towards her, cheek pressed against the side of Buffy's finger. As the blonde girl watched, the small figure blinked, then fidgeted for a moment, and finally, with visible reluctance, unwrapped her arms and stepped down onto the bed.

Buffy snatched her hand away and backed up, trying not to see the forlorn look on Mini-Faith's face as she watched her go. Merrie moved to the bed, and various other tiny forms began peeking out from their hiding places around the room, eyeing the new addition to their ranks. Faith, the full-sized version, was over the worst of her laugh-attack, and came to stand beside the blonde.

"How 'bout that attitude, huh B?" She asked, looking from the miniature version of herself to Buffy. "Some of me must have really copied over, huh? She's even got my thing about not letting anybody boss her around."

All of the little creatures seemed focused on the bed, so Buffy felt comfortable enough to turn her head and regard the other girl with a soft little smile.

"I don't know, Faith," she said, stretching up a tiny bit so that she could rest her chin lightly atop Faith's shoulder. The other girl turned her head a fraction--and froze, trapped by that point-blank gaze, lost in the emerald depths of those wide, oh-so-innocent eyes. Seeing that the girl was well and truly caught, Buffy went on.

"In case you didn't notice, mini-you seemed perfectly fine with being bossed around by _me_. Don't you think that's interesting?" She took a slow half-step back, letting her fingers brush Faith's like she was going to take her hand, then pulling hers away when the girl tried to capture it in her own. Smiling wickedly, Buffy turned half-away and gave Faith a coy look over her shoulder.

"_I_ think that's interesting," she finished, delighting in the taller girl's dumbstruck face.

_Oh my, my, my, she is _really _crushing hard, isn't she? So hard that even the little doll-version can't take her eyes off me. I am going to have _so_ much fun driving her crazy_, she gloated to herself. _Why have I never thought of this before? Teasing the boys who want me is a good time, sure, but if I can do it to girls too then I get to double my fun!_

As if that thought had summoned them, Miranda and Marinda entered the room at just that moment.

"Um, hi," one of them said, looking uncertain. The other glanced around, taking in the scene before speaking.

"Sorry, Buffy; we were kind of wondering--"

"How long we should wait out here?"

Shaking herself out of her lust-induced daze, Faith turned, saw the identical girls standing in the door, and shot an incredulous look at Merrie.

"Holy shit! You can make full-sized ones too?!"

The other mutant, still trying unsuccessfully to coax mini-Faith into her hand, straightened up.

"No, I can't," she said, staring at them and looking very confused. "I can make them a little bigger, but not anything like--"

["Oooooh!"] the twins squealed in unison as they caught sight of the tiny figure on the bed. ["She's so _cute_!"] As one they moved towards the bed. Buffy, standing a bit back from all this, saw mini-Faith take advantage of the distraction to slide down the coverlet and onto the floor.

"Tiny clone person escaping," she said loudly, pointing at the miniature figure.

Startled, Merrie looked down.

"Oh no! Stop!" Little Faith paid no attention to this, dodging around the girl's feet and sprinting for the open door to the hallway. The twins squealed again, blocking her path and reaching down with all four hands ready to grab.

["Want!"] they cried, and the eager look on their faces made mini-Faith skid to a stop, and then run back towards the far side of the room.

"Stop!" Merrie shouted at her creation, her thin voice straining. "I order you to listen to me! _Stop_!"

All that got her was another tiny rendition of a certain obscene gesture as mini-Faith made mini-tracks towards the shadowed space beneath the second bed.

Faith (the taller one) ran a hand back through her hair and glanced at Buffy.

"I feel like I should jump in and help me--I mean, her, ya know?"

Buffy shook her head firmly.

"No. I know it's cute, but we do _not_ need more of these things running around loose."

Faith nodded glumly as she turned back to watch the show, and Buffy had a moment of total smugness as she gazed at the taller girl's profile.

_Besides, what do I need with a little copy of you when I already_ have _the original_?

Merrie, hearing the exchange, shot Buffy an agonized look.

"I'm so sorry, I don't know what's wrong with her. Don't worry, if I get my hands on her I can unanimate her." She shook her head sadly. "I hate to do it, but she's crazy or something."

"We'll take her, we'll keep her!" exclaimed one of the twins. The other, trying to see where the little doll-person had gone, nodded frantically.

"We'll love her and play with her and make her a little castle out of Lego blocks!"

Buffy scowled at them.

"_No_. Now stay back and let the nice lady catch the crazed action figure before it grows and mutates and turns this into a horror movie."

Faith looked startled, and took a quick step back.

"Ah, _hell_ no! The hot, sexy girl who likes to party _always_ gets killed first in those things!"

By this time Merrie was on the far side of the room, peering underneath the second bed.

"I see her. Now, if I can just...." She was reaching underneath, trying to grab at something, when the tiny purple-haired figure darted out from under the other side.

"Agh!" Merrie shouted. "Everyone! Stop her!"

For a moment Buffy thought she was talking to Faith, the twins and herself. Then the 'everyone' in question emerged from hiding, and she understood.

Tiny versions of Mario and Luigi hopped down from the lowest shelf of the bookcase. A miniature Viggo Mortenson look-alike was joined by Orlando Bloom, both of them sporting the same costumes as their characters in Lord of the Rings. Four little cartoony-looking ponies trotted out of the bathroom, all of them in bright pastel colors. Three cute but Bratzy(tm)-looking girls with stylish clothes and oversized heads popped up from inside the open suitcase and hurried to help (though they were hampered both by their high-heels and the way they were trying to touch up their makeup along the way).

Mini-Faith stopped in the middle of the floor, her eyes darting as she took in the various figures running to surround her. As Merrie moved around the foot of the bed and started towards her, the tiny figure seemed to come to a decision, then sprinted towards the massive wooden dresser. There was only a tiny space underneath that, and it would be difficult for anything as big as a human arm to reach there.

Buffy sighed impatiently, though Faith looked like she was silently cheering her micro-doppelganger on.

"Stop her!" Merrie ordered, waving frantically at a figure lurking in the shadows beneath one of the overstuffed chairs. The little man obeyed, running out into view, and the girl gave Buffy an apologetic look.

"Don't worry, she won't get away. He's very fast."

The blonde made a non-committal sound as she observed. This new pursuer had very pale skin, almost like cold marble, and a messy thatch of odd, dark-bronze hair. Her enhanced eyesight let her catch a few glimpses of his tiny face, and she could see that it was impossibly beautiful... and had all the personality of a Ken doll.

He also sparkled, a _lot_, as if someone had mixed a generous handful of glitter into the pseudo-flesh material used to make him.

From what Buffy could see, the little person wasn't really any faster than Mini-Faith, though he did have the advantage of position. As she ran towards safety, he had a shorter distance to run, and so he came at her, his arms spread wide. There was no way for her to avoid him, and he was a full head taller than she, and probably stronger as well.

Mini-Faith never slowed down. She ran at him, and in the last instant before they collided light flared.

Violet light.

From her hands.

Buffy made a startled sound that was lost under Faith's exclamation.

"No _way_!"

The sparkly little man looked as shocked as his nearly-expressionless face _could_ look... just as mini-Faith launched herself and hit him in the chest with both knees. He was thrown backwards to sprawl on the carpet, but before he could do anything about the girl kneeling atop him, those two miniature blades of purple light swept down in a crossing motion.

"_Edward! Nooooo!_" Merrie cried, as a tiny, dark-haired head rolled free.

Mini-Faith bounded to her feet and scrambled back, her head darting from side to side as she tried to watch all of the other figures at once. All of those others; the plumbers, the ponies, the Bratzy Girls(tm) and the Heroes of the Fellowship, all of them came to a stop some distance away. Mini-Faith swept the line with a challenging glare, and made a 'come get some' gesture at them with both of her psi-knives. Of them all, only Aragorn and Legolas were armed, and their weapons were only plastic replicas; completely useless. Little Faith gestured again, inviting them to come closer.

No one took her up on the offer.

With a final disdainful glance at the fearful creatures, the miniature girl turned and slowly stalked out of sight beneath the dresser.

The room went deathly quiet, with Buffy, Faith and the twins all looking at one another uncertainly. Merrie moved slowly to where the confrontation had taken place, then went to her knees. With infinite care she picked up the tiny, headless body of 'Edward'. Buffy noticed that there was no blood from the stump of its neck, just a few random flakes of glitter that drifted slowly to the carpet.

"Wow," Faith murmured in quiet amazement. She flashed them all a triumphant grin. "It doesn't matter how much you shrink me down; I will _always_ be a badass!"

Miranda and Marinda, carefully skirting around the silently grieving Merrie, hurriedly pulled the dresser far enough away from the wall to let them peer behind it.

"There's a hole in the wall here," one of them reported. The other leaned down for a closer look.

"It's like a little mouse hole, with a round chunk cut out of the wooden base thing."

Both of them sighed in disappointment. Faith just bounced up and down on her toes, grinning.

"Face it, yo; nobody's _ever_ going to be as cool as me, no matter what scale of me you try to--Ow!"

Buffy had poked her in the arm with one finger. Hard.

"Remember what I said: this is now officially 'horror movie' territory."

The taller girl's grin faded as she rubbed the bruise, but she was still unrepentant.

"Don't worry, she won't hurt anybody. _I'd_ never hurt anybody." When the blonde arched one eyebrow, recalling the knife in the backpack, not to mention Xander, Faith looked away.

"Well, I'd never hurt _you_, so mini-Faith prob'ly won't either," she grumbled.

That was at least slightly reassuring, so Buffy forced her mind back to more immediate matters. Gesturing to the twins, she picked up the little booklet she'd gotten out in the hall.

"Okay, Merrie?" The girl looked up, tears streaking one cheek... and dripping from the top of the ragged hole in the other. Buffy forced herself not to flinch, and concentrated on looking stern yet sympathetic. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but they want you to move to another room."

The girl blinked, her eyes bleary and confused.

"What? Who's 'they'?"

Buffy walked over, and with a monumental effort reached out to put her hand on Merrie's shoulder.

"The school people. See, there's a provision here in the handbook," she held up the booklet, careful not to show the front cover. "They specifically say that one person can't stay in a room by themselves if two people need it. Sort of a 'happiness of the two outweighs the selfishness of the one' thing."

Merrie looked at the twins standing to the side, still uncertain.

"Can't one of them stay here, with me, and the other one go somewhere else?"

["No! We need to be togeth--"]

Buffy's sharply upraised hand cut them off, and she turned back to the kneeling girl.

"I was going to argue that exact thing," she assured Merrie, her expression one of sad regret. "Only when I come back from checking the rules I find you doing some kind of mad scientist thing, making little killer dolls and letting them run loose."

"I don't know how that happened! None of them have ever had powers before!" She struggled to her feet, and Buffy gratefully took her hand back, resisting the urge to wipe it on her skirt. "I'll be more careful! I won't make any more copies of mutants!"

"Aww," one of the twins said softly.

"We wanted some of us," the second one added. "But only if mine looked like me, and not her."

"And mine would have to look like me, not _her_," the first agreed. Then they grabbed each other's hands and giggled madly to themselves.

"_Not_ good enough," Buffy said loudly, speaking over them. "I mean, sure, it would be good enough for me; I like you." She sighed theatrically. "It's the management types that say you have to move; something about having to keep a close eye on you because their insurance doesn't cover mobs of tiny people running amok. And if they found out it had already _happened_, well...."

She wasn't at all sure the other girl would buy it; certainly Faith was rolling her eyes at the ceiling, and the twins had burst into a fresh fit of hushed giggles.

_Except they haven't been dumped on as much as this girl has, so they're not walking around every minute just waiting for this kind of thing to happen to them. And now, especially, when she's feeling guilty about mini-Faith going crazy and escaping--she really does think she's to blame for something. So...._

"Okay," Merrie said, in a tiny voice. "Let me get my things...."

Buffy waited until she turned towards the bed, then smiled.

"Here, me and Faith will help you carry it downstairs. It's the least we can do."

_See? As long as I get what I want, I can be_ extremely _nice_.

An imperious wave of her hand got a 'whatever' look from Faith, but the girl went to go help throw things back into suitcases. When Buffy looked over at the twins it was just in time to let her brace for another tacklehug.

"Thanks, Buffy!" one of them said into her left ear as she struggled to keep her balance.

"You're awesome, Buffy!" the other said into her right. Somebody had accidentally activated their metastrength, because her nearly unbreakable ribs creaked alarmingly before they let her go and dashed out into the hall. Buffy leaned against the desk as she tried to force air back into her lungs, watching with satisfaction as the various little doll people were shut up in a roomy case apparently dedicated to transporting them.

_Not bad. I get those things moved further away from me, and at the same time make two powerful girls_ very _grateful._ She set the booklet aside, putting it facedown so that the cover of the 'Museum Replicas Limited' catalog wasn't visible. The twins came back into the room a few moments later, their eyes shimmering blue as they balanced the massive trunks on their shoulders. Faith looked over at them, noted this, and snorted dismissively before turning back to help the other girl.

_That's three on my side, plus me, and all of us are very scary people if it comes to a fight. I kind of like how this is going so far._

Merrie closed her suitcase, finished putting a few things into a cardboard box, and sighed.

"That's all of it." She picked up the box and looked hesitantly at Buffy. "They told you I should go downstairs?"

The blonde girl nodded, reaching out to take the box.

"Yep. Here, we'll go down with you, okay?"

The girl smiled, a tiny, tremulous thing that nevertheless showed genuine gratitude.

"Thanks, Buffy. I'm really sorry about all this trouble."

"No trouble; I was glad to do it," she assured her. "Seriously glad, actually." As Merrie walked out into the hall, Buffy handed to box to Faith, who was already carrying the dollpeople case and a cloth bag stuffed with small items.

"Here," she told taller girl. "You take this. I'm not convinced there aren't some of those things hiding in here."

Faith grimaced, working to rearrange her burden so that she wouldn't drop anything.

"B, you are such a girl."

Buffy only smiled.

"You say that like it's a _bad_ thing."

As Faith carefully maneuvered her way through the door, Buffy looked over at the twins. They had dropped their trunks in the middle of the room, then taken a very brief look around. As she watched, they made a simultaneous leap into bed--the same bed. Squirming around until they were propped up on their elbows, with the line of their bodies touching from shoulder to ankle, they grinned at her happily.

_Okaaaaay_, Buffy thought to herself, only slightly startled. _Still, better than the alternative, by a_ lot.

"You see, guys?" she asked, spreading her hands to indicate the plush surroundings. "If you leave everything to me, it all works out." She looked at both of them, making sure she had their attention. "And if we're friends, then I'll do everything I can for you. We _are_ friends now, right?"

"You're officially our bestest friend, Buffy," one of them assured her.

"Right now you're our _only_ friend, Buffy," her sister added. "But even if we had bunches, you'd still be the best one."

"An' we promise we'll leave some food out for the shrunk-down copy of your friend."

Buffy nodded, pleased at their easy acceptance of her leadership.

"Great. I hope we won't be seeing micro-Faith again, though."

_And if we do, then I'm thinking a few dozen mousetraps might be the best way to deal with her. Even if she was kind of cute... in a completely creepy way._

She carefully did not say that out loud; there was no point in upsetting the somewhat childlike pair.

"All right. See you two later." Starting towards the door she was already thinking of her next move when she felt an odd prickling at the back of her neck. Glancing back, she saw that both girls were now resting their chins on their crossed arms, staring at her with identical, thoughtful expressions.

"What?" she asked, surprised by the faint unease she felt.

"Nothing," one said.

"Yeah, it's nothing," the second assured her.

"We're just thinking."

"Pondering, actually."

"Considering, too. There are considerable considerations that must be considered."

Buffy looked from one face to the other, though of course that was completely redundant.

"And all this thinking and pondering is about...what?" she prompted them.

They glanced at each other, then back at her, and made tiny, simultaneous shrugs.

"We might change our minds about something we told you earlier, is all."

"Maybe. There's nothing definite."

"Not yet."

"Though it's certainly possible."

"Very possible. It might even be...."

A long, appraising stare followed, then a slow double nod.

["Probable."]

Then they both smiled.

"Oh. That's.... Oh."

_Oh_.

Buffy smiled uncertainly, turned quickly, and hurried out of the room.

* * * * *


	7. It's all about mannersAnd also Violence

'It's all about Manners... and also Violence'

Disclaimer: See chapter one.  
Author's Note: Hey guys. My apologies; the long absence was, um, long. And stuff. But I'm back now, obviously.  
o_O  
Thank you, to those reviewers who continued to poke and prod me to do more on these stories, even after TWO YEARS of inactivity on my part. Their kind words, support, and enthusiasm were key in helping me remember that, oh yeah, I used to be a writer, didn't I? So, here we go again. I hope you'll be patient with me, since I expect it will take a while for me to get back in the groove after so long away. In the meantime, here's this.

Author's Note II: I really like both the reading and posting interface over at Twisting the Hellmouth (especially since this site, for some completely retarded reason, insists on stripping out links) a lot more than this place, so my stuff always shows up earlier at my page over there. Look for the next chapter of this to be posted (there, if not here) less than a week after this is posted. Look under 'DreamSmith' at tthfanfic (dot) org.

.

Chapter Seven

They could have taken the elevator down to the ground floor of the dorm; there was plenty of room for the three girls.

That was the problem, though, it _wasn't_ just the three of them, and Buffy struggled not to shudder as she motioned for Faith and Merrie to proceed on to the stairs.

_I still can't get over how creepy those little things are,_ she thought to herself. _It's bad enough that Merrie has a whole_box _full of tiny characters from movies and tv and books, and that they're all alive and (mostly) do whatever she tells them. What's muchly (VERY muchly) worse is that she makes them from chunks that she rips out of that freaksome, play-doh body of hers, ugh!_

No, being sealed inside an elevator, with nowhere to run and no way to escape if the horde of tiny _things_ suddenly decided to go skittering across the floor and up her legs and inside her clothes, biting and clawing at her every inch of the way, that was _not_ an option. When the shudder made a second try at getting past her defenses, she gave in and let it happen.

_Not exactly the poster child for the rough and tough mutant girl, am I?_ She mused ruefully, even as they started down the wide stairwell to the second floor. _I don't think anyone would blame me, though, would they? Those little things are seriously creepy! Besides, I've only had superpowers for a few months, but I've been scared of bugs and mice and all those other little crawling things basically my whole life._

"Hey, B," Faith said, pausing on the stairs and working hard to manage the awkward load of Merrie's belongings she was carrying. "Do you think maybe you could lend a hand, here? I mean, you _are_ stronger than me and Mer, here, put together, right? And multiplied by five or something?"

"Probably more like both of you times fifteen, actually," Buffy answered breezily. "Not that it matters, because we're almost there and you guys are doing great!" They reached the ground floor, and Buffy moved to open the sturdy door that led out of the stairwell and into the lowest level of the dorm. She propped it open with her hip, giving Faith and Merrie a dazzling smile as she did a little rhythmic clap.

_"The Moving Girls-  
Of Sunny-Dale!  
They never fail!  
They never fail!"  
We're going to find!  
Merrie a room!  
We'll be there soon!  
We'll be there soon!"  
_  
She brought her empty hands up in front of her body and gave her invisible pom-poms a long shake.

Merrie's eyes were wide, and also a little confused, but Faith gave a longsuffering groan.

"Oh, god; she's a _cheerleader_."

Buffy nodded happily, waiting till both of the others were past before releasing the door to close and following after them.

"Yep! And as such, it is my responsibility to cheer you guys on, to keep your spirits high and your peppiness... peppy."

Merrie wearily shifted the two suitcases she held, apparently not noticing the way the motion made small bits of bloodless flesh shed from her body to lie wriggling on the floor.

"My pep would be peppier if we'd used the elevator," she grumbled softly.

"Or if a supercute supergirl were to, you know, help us a little," Faith added as she didn't _quite_ drop the much heavier load of one large bag, a large box, and a medium-sized case she was carrying.

Buffy just shook her head as she moved past them, and led the way down the hall.

"Nope, sorry, my work as a cheerleader is far too important to be set aside for any sort of crude, manual labor. Only by cheering, and inspiring others to cheer, and most importantly by having absolutely everyone _watch_ me cheer, can I bring lasting peace and happiness to the world. Also, cheering is key to me being voted homecoming queen, which is way, _way_ more important than the peace and happiness thing." A dreadful thought struck her, and she stopped short, then turned to look at Faith. "Wait a second. Do you think they'll even _have_ a homecoming queen here? I know they're _calling_ this a school, but do you think it's a school-y enough school to do normal school things?"

Faith looked to be caught halfway between a laugh and a scowl; her anti-social tendencies probably didn't lead to much fondness for such activities. Before she could answer, however, someone else spoke up.

"Don't worry, little Miss hotness; _I'll_ vote for ya to be queen." He stepped a little closer, and Buffy instinctively recoiled, which only made him grin. "In fact, if you make a habit out of wearin' skirts that short, you are guaranteed to be my favorite mutie-girl in this whole place!"

Buffy had noticed him, in a cursory sort of way, even before he'd spoken. The wide hallway was far from empty, what with various girls still settling into their living spaces, and others wandering out to take a look around. This person, however, was one of the few boys visible, since it was the wing of the mansion that housed the girls. It was only now, however, when she'd gotten a really good look at him, that the grossness factor really registered.

The general outline and construction of his body were typical enough, sure, but one look was enough to give lie to any claim he had on 'normal'.

"Ohhhmm..." Buffy closed her lips firmly over the reflexive exclamation, settling for thinking it instead of saying it.

_Oh. My. God. That is_ so _very wrong._

It was his eyes that freaked her out. Not the eyes he had in the place where people were _supposed_ have eyes; those were fine. It was the other eyes that were impossible to ignore. _All_ of the other eyes... and there must have been several dozen of them.

Little eyes like a necklace, all around the base of his neck, with others peering out through his buzz-cut hair. Medium-sized eyes at his temples, looking off to either side of where his face was pointing, along with yet more scattered up and down the arms left bare by his short-sleeved shirt. And large eyes in the palms of his hands, one each, which she was seeing much too closely, since he was holding both of them stretched out in her direction like someone would aim little cameras at something of interest.

Grinning widely, he took another few steps towards her.

"Yeah, Eye get that all the time," he said, indicating the expression on Buffy's face. The way he emphasized it as he spoke made his play on words impossible to miss. "And let me say 'Ohhmmm' right back at'cha, little girl," he told her, all the while moving his hands up and down and side to side, so as to give those palm-eyes of his a look at her from every angle.

His multiple point-of-view leer was disconcerting, to say the least, but Buffy worked hard to regain her composure.

_I'm getting a little tired of being thrown for a loop every time I meet a new person here_, she complained, keeping it to the privacy of her thoughts. Taking a deep breath, she fixed a sort of neutral smile on her face. It felt stiff and unnatural, but it was the best she could manage under the circumstances.

"Um, hi there. It's... " _Ignore the weirdness, just look him in the eyes. No, not those, or those, or those... those ones right there!_ "It's nice to meet you. I guess. I'm Buffy Summers." She took another breath, and let it out slowly, pleased that she seemed to be getting better at handling this sort of thing.

The boy (he looked to be about her age, give or take a little), moderated the leer just a bit, though it didn't go away entirely.

"Hey there, Buffy. I'm Martin Peters, but everybody calls me 'Peeper'. Eye got no idea why." He broke into a loud guffaw at that, and it only got louder when he stuck his hand out for her to shake, and she took a quick step back.

"Don't like the looks of me?" he asked, shifting easily to a snide, mocking tone. "Doesn't bother me a bit; like Eye said, Eye get that all the time." His expression changed to a squinty sort of smirk, and every eye she could see swiveled in its socket to look at her. "You, on the other hand, are _quite_ the eyeful, aren't you? Oh yeah, I'll bet you're used to people wanting to look at _you_." All those staring eyes would have sent Buffy back another few steps, only she'd back into Faith and Merrie if she did. From behind her, she heard Faith clear her throat softly.

"B, you don't have to listen to this guy if you don't want to. I can surgically remove a few of those extra bits, no problem, all you have to do is give the word-"

"No, it's fine," she told the girl, her eyes never leaving the mutant boy. "He hasn't done anything wrong. There's no law against him looking at me."

Again, Buffy was feeling pretty darn proud of herself. Here she was, being all restrained, and mature, and in control of her instinctual desire to run from or completely destroy anything as freaksome as the person confronting her.

_See? I'm not as hyper violent as mom's afraid I am. No crazy costumes for Buffy, and no stupid made-up super-name, either. I'm not going to be a super hero, or super villain, or super anything at all. Nope, I'm still exactly the same girl I was three months ago, before any of this started. Just an awesome, fun, insanely cute little blonde girl on her first day at her new school, that's me._

Peeper hadn't commented on the byplay between Buffy and Faith; he hadn't really seemed to notice the other two girls at all. Instead, he just stood there, grinning, with all those eyes locked on her, for several long seconds. Then he nodded, and if anything his grin went a notch wider.

"No law against looking, that's right. And I'm glad you feel that way, hotness. So let me just take a look here... just to satisfy my curiosity..." Buffy frowned slightly, confused, and it only got worse when he gave an abrupt bark of laughter.

"Oh my! Look at that!" He cocked his head a little sideways, still looking at her. "Eye see... Lace panties? A lace_thong_?" Buffy jerked, her face flushing red hot as her hands moved to cover herself... though of course her skirt was already doing that.

_What? Oh, no-Does he have x-ray vision or something? It only makes sense that all those extra eyes are there for more than just letting him look in every direction at once._

"Stop it," she warned him, with as fierce a glare as she could muster accompanying the words. "That is _not_ okay, and if you don't stop right this minu-"

"Ooooohh!" Peeper exclaimed, drowning her out. "And what's this? A Brazilian wax? Really?" He smiled smugly as her flush of embarrassment ratcheted up to nova intensity. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Isn't that sort of kinky for somebody as young as you? Wonder if mommy and daddy know what a bad, baaaaaad little girl you are?"

Buffy dropped her gaze, trying to ignore his bizarre, multi-ocular leer, along with the stares she was getting from the dozen or so other girls who were in the hallway, most of whom had stopped some time back to watch this little drama unfold. She even ignored Faith's response to the boy's words (though her enhanced hearing made out some strangled little squeaks following the waxing comment, that sounded a lot like _'Ack! Mine! Want!'_).

No, she ignored all of that. She ignored them, because when she'd dropped her eyes in shame and embarrassment, her gaze had gone to the floor directly in front of her... and locked there. Locked on a small, white, round little orb... that was sitting on the carpet right in front of her very stylish shoes, and looking up her skirt. She blinked, and the eyeball swiveled slightly, meeting her own eyes. The thing gave a startled little wobble, spun in place, and began rolling quickly back to where Peeper was standing.

"Ha! Wondered if you'd ever notice my little spy-eye sitting there." He chuckled at her dumbstruck expression even as he stretched out one foot towards the disgusting little rolley-ball. It reached him, and sort of oozed up onto the top of his shoe like an amoeba in fast-motion. She saw that he wasn't wearing socks, and that there was an empty socket in the top of his foot, just above the shoelaces, that the little ball nestled into and then swiveled to look at her again. When she lifted her gaze to his face, he was back to smirking that smirk at her again.

"Gotta say, no lie, you are the hottest little thing I've seen in this dump so far. What do you say, wanna go someplace and make out?" He gestured at her skirt with one be-eyeballed hand. "After all, it's not like I haven't already seen everything already anyway."

The other girls in the hallway were watching raptly by this point; some of them giggling at her all-too visible dismay, a few others wincing in sympathy. None of that mattered to Buffy; she was much, _much_ too far gone in a white-hot fury to care what anyone thought.

Wordlessly, she stalked forward. Peeper took one look at what was in _her_ eyes, and his grin vanished in an instant.

"Don't try me, little girl," he began. "You really don't want to-" and whatever else he was going to say got lost as he scrambled to react to her sudden lunge.

He _did_ try; she had to give him that much. Every single eye that was locked on her suddenly started vibrating in place, like they were straining to do something. At the same instant, something, some outside force, tried to grab her thoughts, tried to lock everything down and freeze her in place.

"That is _SO_ not going to happen," she informed him. Somehow she thrust the attack aside with the sheer heat and force of her rage, without any real idea of how she managed it. Her hands were folded into fists (well, the best fists she could manage, given her medium-length, perfectly-shaped nails), but the dilemma she faced was a novel one-where could she punch him?

_Ugh. Anyplace I hit is bound to have an eye; there are probably really big ones all over him under his shirt. So what does that leave?_

As it happened, that left one thing. He flinched back as she reached for him, and when that didn't work he tried to grab her hands and force them back. Even though he was a full head taller, and at least sixty pounds heavier, she brushed his hands aside just as she'd brushed aside the mental attack. Taking hold of his shirt and his belt, she effortlessly raised him over her head. Since the hall in front of her was half-full of gaping girls, she turned to face back the way she'd come, towards the stairs. Leaning back, she got a better grip on her projectile, and carefully positioned her feet to compensate for the somewhat fragile heels she was wearing.

"Okay, Mer; watch out," Faith said, reaching out and pushing down on the other girl's shoulder even as she ducked low. When Buffy unwound and threw Peeper down the hallway as hard as she possibly could, both of them were safely out of the way. The boy, on the other hand, had time for one brief shriek before he impacted the metal fire door that led to the stairs. He struck it back-first, pretty much fully spread-eagled, so the upside for him was that the impact was distributed over a wide area.

On the other hand, the impact was so powerful that the door was ripped from its hinges, and Peeper's body kept right on going, ending up in a broken sprawl across the lowest flight of steps.

The enormous _CrashBOOM_ sound reverberated through the entire wing of the mansion, and dozens of little white balls exploded outwards in all directions from the point of impact. It took Buffy a moment to realize that the squishy little orbs were eyes, knocked loose from their moorings by the force of the collision.

She glared at the closest ones, daring them to take one 'peep' in her direction, but all they seemed able to manage was to spin around, over and over, in little dazed circles. Faith and Merrie straightened up slowly from their crouches. The tall, purple-haired girl took a long look at the scene behind her, then turned and gave Buffy an inquiring look.

"'It's fine,'" she said, doing her best to mimic Buffy's softer, more girlish tones. "'He hasn't done anything wrong. There's no law against him looking at me'."

Buffy gave an elaborately indifferent shrug.

"There's looking, and then there's pervy looking. Looking is fine. Pervy looking is just plain rude."

Merrie was watching the barely-perceptible movements of the unconscious boy as he struggled to breathe, and when she turned to look at Buffy her eyes were wide.

"Rudeness is bad," she said, her voice earnest. "It's really, really bad, Buffy, and I promise none of my little friends will every do anything pervy around you. Ever."

Faith gave a little snicker, but the blonde girl just nodded.

"I believe you," she assured the other girl.

_Mostly. Maybe. Either way, I still don't want any of those little things around me. So let's finish getting you moved._

"So, let's finish getting you moved," she repeated aloud, gesturing for them to follow her towards the open doors of the first-floor dorm rooms. "I'm sure somebody down this way will have an opening, especially if we ask them politely."

The various girls who had been a silent audience to the whole encounter were dispersing now, going back to whatever they'd been doing before the commotion. As they went, they murmured among themselves, and she made a point to tune her ears higher as she passed by.

"-Thought she was a lightweight, the way she was acting earlier-"

"-Screamed like a girl, I heard, when she saw those little people the gross ones makes, but _damn_, that was hardcore-"

"-_Sooo_ pretty! I wonder... do you think I should go blonde?"

"-Gave that peeking-tom asshole what he deserved-"

"-I think that's supposed to be 'Peeping Tom', Marcie, and besides, after what I caught _you_ doing earlier-"

"-Not at all what I was expecting, after that retarded Xander guy managed to plow over her on that stupid skateboard of his-"

"-Heard that her and the one with the hair pinned that guy down and tortured him for doing that to her; cut him up really bad. I didn't believe it before, but now-"

"What did she say her name was? Bunny?"

"'_Buffy_'. She said 'Buffy'. Which is kind of a weird name. Who has a name like 'Buffy'?"

"No way, Aphrodesia! I think she's awesome! Do you think maybe she's going to move in on our floor? Wouldn't that be great?"

Buffy smiled, and let her hearing fade to normal, and felt herself begin to relax.

_Well, okay, I guess Mom isn't completely wrong about me; I might be a_ little _more violent, now. Sometimes. That doesn't mean I'm not the same Buffy I've always been._

She giggled at a sudden thought, and smiled wickedly to herself.

_Yep, still the same Buffy... only I'm able to do much, much nastier things to people now, if they deserve it._

A bouncy, gleeful little motion came into her step as she walked, and she ignored the inquiring looks she was getting from Faith and Merrie.

_Of course, 'if they deserve it' might be a really flexible category. Because, you know what I'm starting to realize?_

_Being Hyperviolence-Girl is_ fun!


	8. Her new toy has knives AND a temper

'Her new toy comes with knives AND a temper'

Disclaimer: See chapter one.

A/N: This is me, begging for reviews. Want reviews, NEED reviews. Shiny, candy-like reviews, mmmmm.

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"-Gotta say, it's wicked lame how you're scared to let me even _try_-"

"I'm _not_ 'scared', you purple-haired nutcase, but if you think I'm going to just stand here and let you _stab_me-"

"-And, um, I promise I won't be any trouble... If you let me, um, you know... stay? And my little ones won't be any bother either. They're very well-behaved... usually, and, um..."

Buffy watched the three other girls with amusement, fingers idly twirling a lock of her hair as she looked on.

"I'm only going to stab you a little," Faith was saying, a blaze of violet light in the shape of a wickedly-barbed knife in her hand. She moved slowly forward and to her right, circling towards her opponent. "Come on, just let me do it already; one time, really quick, and then we'll know-"

_"No!"_The other girl, Hisako, shook her head and glared at Faith even as she edged back and away, circling the room for the second time since the 'discussion' had began. The strange aura that surrounded her, which looked sort of like the outline of an oversized spacesuit made from large, glowing red bubbles, flared brighter for a moment in response to her emotions, then stabilized. "I swear, if you come near me with that thing, I am going to shove it so far up your backside that your eyes are going to turn purple too!"

Merrie, standing in the very center of the room with her bags, her suitcase and her box on the floor all around her, was wringing her hands in distress.

"A-and, I promise I'll be a good roommate, and keep very quiet when you're studying, or sleeping...?" Noticing how her hand-wringing was causing bits of pink, slightly rubbery flesh to flake off and drift to the floor, she hastily stopped and put her hands behind her. "Ah! Sorry! I'll clean that up, I promise! Um... hello?"

The other two gave no sign of knowing the girl even existed, other than as an obstacle that complicated the stalking and evasion thing that was playing out between them. Buffy managed to keep from giggling out loud at the absurdity of the situation, but she couldn't help the pleased sigh, and the way her lips quirked into a fond little smile as she watched Faith.

_This girl is messed-up in the strangest ways. Most of the time she's so confident and strong, and then the next minute she turns massively insecure... like now. It's like some other five-year-old on the playground just said that her doll is better than Faith's doll... so now proving that it isn't so is the most important thing in the world._

_Why is it so adorable when she gets all crazy and violent and immature like that?_

"Yeah, yeah, you're gonna stick my knife up my own ass; whatever," Faith didn't look even a little impressed by the threat. "It's that kind of big talk that got us here, remember?" She waggled the blazing weapon she held, using it to point at the other girl's glowing armor. "You do _not_ get to say that my shit is weaker than your shit. You do _not_get to talk smack like that to me and then walk away." She smiled a hungry little smile, crouched a tiny bit lower, then edged forward again.

Hisako, her eyes wide, stopped her sideways motion and retreated back towards one of the room's two beds.

"I never _said_ that! _You_asked me what my power was, and I told you!"

"You told her you were superstrong and invulnerable," Buffy offered helpfully from the sidelines. "And then she said 'invulnerable?' To which you said 'Yes, nothing can get through my armor when it's on, nothing at all'." The Asian girl shot her a distracted, semi-panicked look, and the blonde smiled sweetly in return. "To me that sounds like you _were _saying her knives weren't as powerful as your wacky bubble-suit, there."

"What?" The glowing girl had backed all the way to the wall now, and with a look of desperation she grabbed the nearer bed and lifted it easily. "I didn't even know what her power _was_! How could I have been saying mine was better?"

Merrie was looking more and more lost, and upset, and now her little 'friends' were peeking out of their carry-case and watching the antics of the big people.

"...Is anyone even _listening_to me?" She asked plaintively, her eyes going from Hisako to Faith. The girl in the glowing armor was poised to swat Faith with the bed she held, and the girl with the knife was looking for an opening so she could dart in and finally test her weapon against that defense. Merrie looked pleadingly at Buffy. "Anyone? About me living here? Anyone?"

Buffy shrugged carelessly, still playing with her hair. Looking back at the other two girls, she raised her voice.

"I mean, saying she had a lame power was bad enough, but then you called her a nutcase, too? I don't blame her for being upset." She glanced to the side, where the mirror over the dresser reflected the image of a beautiful blonde girl back at her. Buffy pursed her pink-glossed lips in a seductive little pout at her reflection and continued aloud, while happily admiring herself. "Honestly, I'm surprised she's only trying to prove you're wrong about that armor stopping her knife. With all the insults and name-calling, on top of how you're ignoring our poor friend Merrie, here, _I _think she should make you apologize to all of us."

_"Apologize?" _Hisako demanded incredulously, outrage turning the word into a squeak. Faith darted forward, knife leading, but was forced to leap back to avoid being swatted by the bed. The wind from that swing blew her hair back behind her in a stream of wild purple tangles, and she glared at her opponent.

"She's right! You've been talking shit to us from the second we walked in here!"

"And remember, she shoved you, too," Buffy reminded them helpfully, even as she settled herself gracefully in the seat before the mirrored vanity table.

"You _did _shove me!" Faith snarled, trying another lunge. When the bed came back around in a whooshing arc she leapt back again. This time, however, her blade took off one of the endposts, and a large chunk of mattress as well.

"Of course I shoved you!" Hisako snapped at her. "Because you came at me with a _knife_!"

Buffy crossed her legs at the knee and flipped her hair behind her shoulder, consciously assuming a poised and elegant pose as she regarded herself. The blonde girl in the mirror really _was_extraordinarily pretty... and she looked to be having entirely too much fun.

"And didn't she try and hit you, too?" She called in a sugary-sweet voice.

"Fuck yeah, she did! With one of those fat, stupid, roly-poly bubble-hands of hers!

"Because you came at me _with a knife_!" Hisako repeated, her fear and frustration clearly approaching overload levels. Grunting with the effort, she whipped the bed she held from left to right, then back the other way, then tried thrusting it straight at the taller girl. Each time, a piece of it went flying, cut free as Faith's psi-knife sheared through both metal frame and foam padding like it was nothing. One more attempted swat left her with barely a quarter of the bed left, and the Japanese girl gave a wordless shout as she flung it at her tormenter with all her might.

Buffy, who had taken a moment to reach into the small purse she'd brought, paused to watch the scuffle in the mirror over her reflection's shoulder.

Faith, with a sharp gesture from her empty hand, telekinetically deflected the large projectile off to one side-the side of the room _away_from where Buffy sat. The blonde girl nodded in satisfaction, even as Hisako leapt at Faith.

_Yes, just like that,_ she thought approvingly. _Random violence is perfectly okay, so long as you aim it at anyone and anything else... and never, ever at me._

She found what she was looking for in her bag, uncapped the little tube, and began re-applying her lip gloss. In the mirror's background, Faith intercepted the other girl's leap with another telekinetic push. Hisako swerved in mid-air, tumbling head over heels across the room to slam into the far wall. She dropped to the floor, leaving behind a faint outline of her bubble-field indented in the wall. Buffy, satisfied that her lips were once more perfectly pink, glossy and kissable, took note of this with a tiny frown.

_That's a pretty sturdy wall; she hit it hard, and barely hurt it at all. They must have built everything here extra-strong, knowing that there would be lots of fights. It's all probably fireproof too, so nobody with gyrokinesis... fyrokinesis? So nobody with fire powers accidentally burns everything down by accident._ She glanced over at the door to the hallway, which was closed, then once more around the room. _Great soundproofing too, like I noticed before; nobody's running in to see what all the yelling and crashing is about._ She smirked then, and gave a soft, very ladylike snort of amusement. _Or maybe it's just that nobody wants to get involved in whatever's going on in here-smart of them._

Hisako had climbed to her feet with difficulty; inside her armor she looked bruised and shaken. Faith, sensing victory, bounded forward, her dagger sweeping down. The Asian girl instinctively raised an arm to deflect it, and a shower of blazing sparks rained over her as the blade made glancing contact with her force field.

Everything stopped for a moment. Both girls froze, their eyes going to Hisako's arm.

It was still there, unharmed, although the red field showed a bluish discoloration where the psi-knife had struck, and the armor looked paler, and perhaps weaker, all along her arm.

Hisako swallowed, and met Faith's eyes.

"There. It didn't go through. Satisfied?"

Faith's eyes narrowed.

"Doesn't count; I barely touched you." Spinning the blade around to an overhand grip, she raised her arm. "Let's try it again, only this time I'll give you one that's nice and solid; straight-on."

_"No!"_Hisako stepped in close, using both of her hands to try and catch hold of Faith's wrist. She failed; encased in puffy, stubby-fingered bubbles as they were, her hands were too clumsy. Her bulky, armored form, however, did serve to knock Faith backwards, too off-balance to attack. The Asian girl pressed her advantage, managing to grab hold of that long, purple hair in one hand. An awkward swing with her other hand connected, barely, with Faith's head, snapping it back sharply.

Buffy, who had been lounging indolently in in her chair, bolted to her feet, heart in her throat.

"Faith!"

She was halfway across the room before she'd even made a conscious decision to move, but even so she was too slow.

Faith's arm came across, her knife intercepting Hisako's second, more carefully-aimed blow, and sparks showered across them both. The Asian girl flinched back instead of finishing the swing. She still had hold of Faith's hair, though, and she used that grip to swing the taller girl around and slam her back against the wall. Faith grunted, though her glare never faltered. A second psi-knife materialized in her empty hand, and both of them swept upwards, going for a combined, crossing strike at the forearm above her head. Hisako flinched again, releasing her grip on that purple mane and yanking the arm back out of harm's way.

Buffy stopped where she was, in the center of the room, and tried to decide what she should do.

_I should help her; she's not invulnerable, and Armor-girl is at least middling superstrong. Only... she wouldn't want that. I think. I mean, okay, I've only known her for a couple of hours, but it's pretty obvious. Everything she's done has been her trying to impress me with how tough, and fierce, and macho she is. If I save her, I take that away... and I don't know if she could handle that._

It was hard, taking the risk that Faith would be seriously hurt. It was surprisingly hard, actually, given that she barely knew the girl, and shouldn't really care one way or the other. Still, Buffy took a breath, did the difficult thing, and backed away.

Hisako was still crowding Faith back against the wall, leaving the taller girl no room to move and no space in which to set up a solid attack. A psi knife slashed across the armor's torso, and the other cut at a thigh, both hits throwing off gouts of sparks, but the force field held. In response, Hisako drew back her fist and fired it straight at Faith's chest, with terrifying force.

Buffy gasped, Merrie shrieked, and Faith _blurred_sideways, grunting as an invisible force yanked her out of the way. Hisako's armored fist smashed a shallow divot into the reinforced wall. Realizing her opponent was no longer before her, she turned, and saw Faith regaining her feet with murder in her eyes.

"Bubbleskank, you have no _idea_ how much I'm gonna hurt you." Hisako tried her best to look angry and unimpressed, but Buffy could see the fear in her eyes. Still, the girl stepped forward, and raised an armored fist. Faith's reply was to let both of her knives fade into nothing. She raised her hands, palms out, then_shoved_them forward.

The Asian girl squealed sharply in surprise as the wave of force threw her cartwheeling backwards. Faith strode forward, and Hisako rose shakily to her feet... only to be thrown back again by another sharp gesture. She struck the wall next to the open door to the bathroom, hard enough to shake the room. By this time her face was looking puffy, and a trickle of blood was dripping from one nostril. Eyes wide with fear, she made an abortive lunge for the door to the hallway, then shrank back when Faith summoned both daggers back to her hands. With nowhere else to go, she turned and stumbled into the bathroom, slamming the door a bare instant before the other girl got there.

"What's the matter, bitch?" Faith yelled, ramming one of her blades through the door. "Pissing all over yourself? Scared little girl needs to go potty?" Taking a step back she fired one booted foot into the barrier, but the reinforced door held firm against her merely human strength. "Come on! If we're gonna fight then let's fight! Let's _go_!"

Across the room, Buffy realized she'd been holding her breath for the last minute, and released it in a shuddering rush.

_Thank god. For a second there I was sure.…_

"Buffy? Hey, um... Buffy?"

It was Merrie, fluttering nervously at her side. The blonde pushed her carelessly away, barely noticing when the girl was sent sprawling.

"Not now," she said absently, hurrying to where Faith was preparing to cut her way into the bathroom.

"-Going to call the Principal!" Hisako was yelling, from inside her makeshift refuge. "And the school board, and the police!" Even with her voice muffled by the door, it was plain that the girl was nearly hysterical with terror.

"You're not going to do shit!" Faith shouted back. "Wanna know why? 'Cause I'm going to come in there, cut you out of your glowy little shell, and then _smash_ your ugly little _face _in!"

She'd already made one small hole in the door, when she'd stabbed her knife through it. Now she thrust one of her blades deeply into the panel, apparently intending to cut a person-sized entrance. Buffy reached out, put both hands on the girl's arm, and kept her from doing that.

"Faith,"

Her head snapped around with violent speed.

_"What?"_Her snarl became a pained wince, though she tried to hide it. Looking at Buffy, she panted for a moment, still out of breath from her brawl. Making a visible effort to calm herself, she tried again. "What?"

"Enough," Buffy said, in her softest little-girl voice, the one she used to persuade her father to buy her five hundred dollar pairs of shoes. "Faith, stop. It's enough."

Applying gentle, inexorable pressure, she pulled the girl's arm back, inch by inch, until the psi-blade was clear of the bathroom door. Faith struggled, and she was very strong for a human girl, but of course Buffy was far stronger.

"It's not enough," she growled through teeth gritted with effort. "It's _not_. That bitch _hit _me." Still restraining her as gently as she could manage, Buffy nodded.

"And you scared her silly. She's hiding in the bathroom, Faith. Actually," Cocking her head to one side, she _listened_ for a moment, then gave a wry little smile. "Actually, she's _crying _in the bathroom."

Faith blinked, considering that, and abruptly stopped trying to force her way to the door.

"No shit?"

Buffy shook her head solemnly, eyes wide with profound quantities of mock-seriousness.

"Nope, no shit."

The tall girl relaxed slightly, and one of her knives dissolved in a wash of purple-violet.

"Well, okay, if I made her cry then I guess I can wait a few minutes before I finish kicking her ass." With her free hand she cautiously touched her head. "Ow! Fuck!" Buffy reached up, pushing her hand away.

"Here, let me see." Brushing aside Faith's long bangs, she found an impressive knot half-hidden in the hairline near her right temple. She probed the swelling with her fingertips, as gently as she possibly could, but even that feather-light touch made Faith wince. "Sorry," she murmured softly.

_I think she's okay. The new and improved Buffy super senses includes an extra-sensitive touch deal, and I don't feel anything cracked, or shifting around in there._

A few drops of blood were trickling from one nostril, even though she hadn't seen anything hit the girl's nose. There was no damage visible, either; nothing that would explain the bleeding.

"Look at me," she ordered. Faith obediently turned her head, meeting Buffy's gaze from closer than they'd ever been up until now. Long moments passed, until Faith's eyebrows inched fractionally higher.

"Okay... and...?"

Buffy gave a start, smiled, and made a show of peering into first one honey-brown eye and then the other.

"Oh; sorry. Umm... not sure what I'm looking for, here, but that's what they always do on TV when someone gets bonked on the head."

"Huh." Faith thought about it for a second, then shrugged. "Well, not like it's a chore to stare at you or anything, so take your time."

Buffy couldn't help the little laugh that slipped out, caught somewhere between embarrassment and delight.

_That girl-crush of hers is waaaay out of hand, isn't it? I mean, okay, it's cute and all, but it's also very.… _She lowered her head, glanced up to meet Faith's gaze once more, then gave a little start as she realized she was unconsciously using one of her favorite flirting maneuvers, designed to show off the green of her eyes and the length of her lashes.

_Very strange, the effect this girl has on me. Am I really standing here wishing I was wearing eye shadow and mascara, so that my eye trick would be at maximum flirty power?_

It definitely felt odd; perhaps because of the way the mutant powers thing changed a dynamic that was otherwise familiar to her.

_That might be it_, she realized suddenly. _This is a lot like the thing we did at Hemory, with the cheerleaders manipulating the jocks into doing things for us. They did us favors all the time, so long as we were nice to them. And the best ones, for a few kisses, or some making out, or a date, would do practically anything we asked._

_Faith wants to be that for me, which is fine, but I'm not sure what to do about the reward part. I can't be her girlfriend or whatever. That would seriously hurt my status, to be 'weird lesbian girl', and I can't have that. I want to be important here; I __need to be important here._

Being a cheerleader at her old high school had been very much like being royalty, with a host of unofficial but very real privileges. That kind of thing wasn't easy to give up once you'd experienced it, and Buffy didn't particularly care to try. For one thing, holding on to that power would help ease the sting of having been forcibly dragged out of her old life. If she could retain her popularity here, and rebuild her circle of like-minded friends, then, well, everything else that was happening would be a lot easier to endure.

During the several seconds it had taken Buffy to work that through, Faith had been staring, as helpless and lost as the most smitten high-school jock. Buffy had played that game more than a few times, and she definitely knew the look. When the taller girl shifted, as if to lean forward and claim a quick kiss, the little blonde was ready, and easily avoided her with a step back.

"You're fine," Buffy told her primly, with a final glance at those eyes. "Pupils are sequel and diffractive, as well as being sort of... brownish... so you're good."

Faith stood there awkwardly, for once looking unsure of what to do.

"Good. I'm good; great news."

Buffy nodded, glancing around the room, looking at anything and everything _except_Faith. The room was a bit of a shambles, of course, with bits of shredded bed strewn about, cracks in two of the walls, the damaged door, and Hisako's belongings scattered around where they'd been trodden underfoot.

"Buffy? Hey, Buffy?"

"Hmm?"

It was Merrie, who she'd very nearly forgotten was even in the room. The girl shifted nervously, swallowed (which was a disgusting thing to watch when the person doing it was missing nearly a whole cheek and parts of her throat as well), and finally spoke.

"I was just, uh, going to say that I can, uh, maybe try to find another room? I mean, if it's going to cause all_this-_" She gestured across the room, and its current state of disarray.

"This is nothing," Buffy assured her. "Things always get broken when you move, that's a law of the universe or something. Besides, the nice girl hiding in the bathroom _did_say you could room with her, right?"

"I did not!" Hisako shouted from behind the door, her voice muffled.

Buffy sighed, turning to regard the noisy door.

"Yes, you did, don't you remember? We very politely said 'Hi there, this is Merrie. Would you please let her room with you?'. And you said 'Of course.' Which was very kind of you, by the way."

Faith had stepped up beside her by this point, not _quite_so close as to accidentally brush against Buffy accidentally on purpose. She grinned mockingly at the door, where Hisako's eye was just visible as the girl peered out through one of the small holes a psi-knife had made.

"That is _not_ what happened," the Asian girl exclaimed, her voice thin with strain and frustration. "You said 'Hey, look Merrie, only one person in here. This must be your room!' And then you dropped freak-girl's stuff in the middle of _my _floor without even asking!"

Merrie was looking distressed, so Buffy forced herself to reach out and-at arm's length-pat her gently on the shoulder.

"She's sort of mean and bitchy, isn't she? Well, don't worry, I'm sure she'll be great once she calms down a little."

"_You're _the bitch, bitch!" Hisako shouted from within her refuge, which sent Faith surging forward a step.

"Oh yeah?" A gesture made the entire wall shudder with the force of the invisible impact. The battered door bulged inwards slightly, but held. Faith raised her fist again, and Buffy moved quickly to catch hold of her wrist.

"Don't. _Please _don't," She said, her voice softly pleading. "You weren't with me earlier, when I saw some other kids fighting with each other. They have rules about it; the people running the place get seriously cranky if we do any serious damage here." Recalling how scared the twins had been; how effortlessly the woman Kimura had dominated those two miniature demigoddesses, she shook her head. "I don't think it's a good idea to push things, not until we get a better feel for what's going on."

Faith looked at her, dark eyes going sullen, and she scowled at the blank door.

"That's bullshit," she grumbled. "I can _take_ her; I can _so_take her."

"Why don't you take yourself to the crazyhouse, you freaking maniac!" The muffled shout from behind the door only made Faith snarl, and she kicked the panel with all her might.

"Shut the fuck up! Unless you want to come out here and say it to my face!"

Buffy sighed, but at least it didn't seem like the girl was about to start cutting her way in after her foe. Stepping up behind her, she spoke quietly into Faith's ear.

"Will you please stay here for a little while, and keep an eye on things?" She indicated the pile of Merrie's belongings with a little wave. "Just until she's all settled in?"

Faith glanced back, saw what she was indicating, then nodded.

"Sure, B. I can do that, no problem."

"Thanks," Buffy said, very, very softly. She had a startlingly powerful urge to kiss the girl on the cheek, but firmly suppressed the impulse. Instead she gave the tangled length of purple hair a playful little yank, and turned away. Moving to where Merrie still stood, she smiled brightly.

"Okay, I think that's all settled. Have fun, take care, see you later." _Only, you know, hopefully not so much on that last part._

Merrie nodded faintly, still looking a bit dazed by how a simple change of rooms had led to so much violence.

"Uh... I guess... thank you?"

"Not a problem," the blonde girl lied, feeling quietly ecstatic at the prospect of finally being rid of the disgusting girl. Movement on the floor at her feet caught her eye, and she looked down to see a hand-high version of Rainbow Brite staring hatefully up at her.

_What's this? Some of you little monsters are quicker on the uptake than your mommy? You see how it makes my skin crawl to be within a hundred feet of her? Not that it matters._

She started out of the room, doing her best to 'accidentally' stomp the tiny creature out of existence, but it managed to dodge out of the way, if only just barely.

_Too bad. I wonder if I should start wearing my stiletto heels, though. That would teach these things to stay out of my way.…_

"Faith," she called from the doorway that led into the hall. "I'm going to look around some more. If you can't find me, don't forget about that assembly thing we have to go to later."

"Sure," Faith said, standing with her arms folded, still facing the bathroom door. "I'll just help Mer unpack and stuff. Unless chickenshit here gets tired of counting the floor tile and decides to come out and play."

Buffy rolled her eyes, but waved a hand in acknowledgement.

"Okay, whatever. Just remember what I said."

"Don't trash the place, or else the invisible overlords will get pissed; got it."

Buffy nodded, lingering in the doorway for a few moments, her eyes on Faith.

_Why did she have to be a girl? Things would be soooo much simpler if it were a guy standing there. Granted, she smells much nicer than any of the football players ever did. She's prettier too; that goes without saying. And then there's the lack of chin stubble, and those lips, and the way her... ah, Buffy, quit being silly._

She turned away and slipped outside, closing the door quietly behind her.


End file.
